SAP Solution Manager:
An Application Lifecycle Management tool
White Paper
Bachelor‟s thesis within Informatics Author: Chen Cheng
Michael Dibo Bekindaka Tutor: Daniela Mihailescu Jönköping March 2011
Bachelor’s Thesis in Informatics
Title: SAP Solution Manager: An Application Lifecycle Management tool. Author: Chen Cheng,
Michael Dibo Bekindaka Tutor Daniela Mihailescu Date: 2011-February Subject terms:
Abstract
Background: The outburst of the application industry leading to the creation of com-plex applications serves as the need for a proactive approach to the implementation and monitoring of applications. Application Life-cycle Management (ALM) thus provides a conceptual framework with pre-defined steps that can help organizations successfully deploy their IT applications and adapt them to meet their changes in business needs. SAP Solution Manager is one of such ALM tools that is widely used by SAP Customers to manage their entire IT landscape, for cross-integration of application platforms thereby securing Return On Investment (ROI).
Challenges with application integration are very vital to note when considering the cus-tomer‟s perspective. Previous methods of application delivery with closed application platforms cannot suffice to solve the integration problem; therefore application delivery has to be done in a more transparent fashion, which will lead to cross-application devel-opment techniques and thus maximize customer satisfaction and safe in cost of custom-ization, in order to fit existing IT environment.
Purpose: The primary aim of this report is to investigate SAP Solution Manager as an Application Life-cycle Management tool, bringing out its potentials benefits and pre-senting challenges encountered by its users thus far.
This purpose is achieved with the a case study on SAP Solution Manager, where SAP customers and developers are being questioned about their experiences with the use of Solution Manager as an application life-cycle management tool, through an online sur-vey.
Method: In order to achieve the essence of this academic paper, we made use of aca-demic methods. According to Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill (2007), a methodology is a theoretical procedure of how a research should be done. We therefore make use of the inductive approach and exploratory strategy in finding facts to empirically back up our claims and proposals about this sustainable method of software delivery.
Conclusion: The data collected from the interviews and the theoretical frameworks from journals, articles and books are being used in the analysis to show the outcome of this study: SAP Solution Manager as an ALM tools has potential benefits that could be harnessed if the users understand the value of the tools and features embedded in it. Further, the challenges incurred could also be due to lack of proper understanding of the value of embedded tools, which prevents users from adequately deploying them.
Table of Contents
1
Introduction ... 1
1.1 Background ... 1 1.2 Problem Discussion ... 2 1.3 Research Question ... 3 1.4 Purpose ... 3 1.5 Delimitations ... 3 1.6 Disposition ... 4 1.7 Definitions ... 52
Method ... 7
2.1 Hermenuism ... 7 2.2 Research Approach ... 8 2.3 Research Strategy ... 9 2.3.1 Case study ... 9 2.4 Research Choice ... 9 2.5 Time Horizon ... 10 2.6 Data collection ... 10 2.6.1 Secondary Data ... 10 2.6.2 Primary Data ... 102.6.3 Data reliability and validity ... 11
2.7 Data Analysis ... 11
3
Literature Review ... 13
3.1 Standard Adaptive Life-cycle management ... 13
3.2 The Changing Face of Application Life-Cycle Management ... 15
3.2.2 The open Application Life-cycle Management ... 19
4
Frame of Reference ... 20
4.1 SAP Solution Manager ... 20
4.1.1 SAP Solution Manager Features and Functions ... 21
4.2 Panaya Inc. SAP Solution Manager Survey ... 24
4.2.1 Background ... 24
4.2.2 SAP Solution Manager Survey ... 24
4.3 Potential Benefits of SAP Solution Manager ... 25
4.3.1 Business Benefits ... 25
4.3.2 IT Benefits ... 25
5
Empirical Findings ... 26
5.1 Data display: ... 26
6
Analysis... 33
6.1 Utilization of Features and Functions of SAP Solution Manager... 34
6.1.1 Major Reasons for Using SAP Solution Manager ... 34
6.2 Benefits and challenges in using SAP Solution Manager ... 37
6.2.1 Potential Business and IT Benefits of SAP Solution Manager ... 37
6.3 Rating of Solution Manager ... 39
8
Discussion and Reflection ... 43
9
Appendix ... 47
9.1 Questionnaire for SAP customers/SAP-Partner System
Integrators: ... 47 9.2 Survey Cover letter ... 50
Figures
Figure 1 The Research Onion ... 7
Figure 2 The research approach V model. ... 8
Figure 3 Components of data analysis: Miles and Huberman’s interactive model ... 12
Figure 4 Standard Adaptive Management Life Cycle ... 14
Figure 5 ALM 1.0: Today’s ALM suite ... 16
Figure 6 ALM 2.0: Tomorrow’s ALM platforms ... 17
Figure 7 Open ALM Platforms ... 19
Figure 8 Application Life-cycle Management from SAP ... 20
Figure 9 SAP Solution Manager Features ... 21
Figure 10 Application cycle Management Processes Across the Life-cycle Phases ... 23
Figure 11 Respondent business domains ... 26
Figure 12 Respondents by company size ... 26
Figure 13 Years of SAP Solution Manager deployment in organizations ... 27
Figure 14 Years of respondents working experience with Solution Manager 27 Figure 15 Respondents field of specialty ... 27
Figure 16 Most important features of SAP Solution Manager ... 28
Figure 17 Top reasons of using SAP Solution Manager ... 28
Figure 18 Use of Documentation ... 29
Figure 19 Facts about features of Solution Manager ... 29
Figure 20 User perspective of Solution Manager ... 30
Figure 21 Overall rating of SAP Solution Manager ... 30
Figure 22 Top business benefits of SAP Solution Manager ... 30
Figure 23 Top IT benefits of SAP Solution Manager ... 31
Figure 24 Top challenges of SAP Solution Manager ... 31
Figure 25 Satisfaction of TCO of SAP Solution Manager ... 32
Figure 26 Suggested features to be improved ... 32
Figure 27 Degree of Importance of Features ... 36
Figure 28 Harnessing SAP Solution Manager (Created by Authors) ... 40
Tables
Table 1 The Hidden costs of ALM 1.0 ... 161
Introduction
The introduction provides a vivid general view of the concept of Application Lifecycle Management, problem discussion, research questions and main aim of this study. It also defines the scope of this study, thereby guiding the reader on what to expect from the rest of the report.
1.1
Background
Constant evolution in the IT industry leads to the creation of new technologies. Recently, the IT industry is experiencing an outburst of application development in which several en-terprises are creating different complex applications to match current business needs. There is a need for these multi-vendor applications to interoperate; therefore ALM plays the role of a key enabler for streamlining a team‟s ability to produce and release software applications through the coordination of software development activities and assets throughout their lifecycle (Mats, Carolyn, Philip, Khurram, Katur, Brianna & Nail Yuce, 2008).
ALM is a new concept that is re-defining the way software applications are being delivered. This concept has a high level of awareness but limited understanding in context with busi-ness, thus low level of utilization in organization (Carey, John & Jacqueline, 2006). Chal-lenges in the development lifecycle of applications have led to the inception of the ALM concept. Defining ALM is not very easy, and several people (including vendors) have tried different definitions to explain this seemingly blurry concept. Typically, ALM has been equated to Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC), which is very limiting. Like a human life, an application‟s lifecycle is demarcated by significant events starting from the point of inception, deployment till end of life (Chappell & Associates, 2008). There is a need for an end-to-end approach in the method of software/application delivery, where software ven-dors do not just need to sell software to customers, but actually partake in the development of the software as the customers utilizes it.
In this research, the authors seek to outline the benefits that come along with the use of a lifecycle approach to software delivery. Proper integration of practitioner tools and differ-ent applications from differdiffer-ent vendors optimizes customer satisfaction and further save in licensing fee (Carey et al, 2006). ALM creates a platform where systems, people, process and information can be properly connected, thus increasing team collaboration and productivity (Microsoft Services, 2010). ALM has evolved from ALM 1.0 to ALM 2.0, but there still exist certain challenges that hinders the wide spread acceptability of this concept. We make use of a case study strategy and collect data through a survey, where custom-ers/developers of SAP Solution Manager (SolMan) are being asked to recount their experi-ences with the use of this tool as an ALM tool/platform. This case study enables the au-thors to produce empirically backed up results about the potential benefits business can ac-crue in the use of this lifecycle product, and also the major challenges encountered; as such advocating for the value to be gained from the heavy investment cost incurred. Basically, SAP Solution Manager is very complex application software, which has various features, and functionalities that need to be fully utilized in order to attain Return on Investment (ROI). Statistics from previous researches/surveys like the one did by Panaya Inc, 2010, suggest that a substantial amount of their respondents (347) did not use SAP Solution Manager‟s full functionality and were not also very aware of the benefits SAP Solution Manager brings to the organization (Panaya, 2010).
Hence, there is a focus on SAP Solution Manager, its main features and functionalities, and bringing out its use as an application lifecycle management tool. The benefits of using the various functionalities of this product to the maximum are being outlined. Also, challenges that the customers experience with this product will be critically analyzed.
1.2
Problem Discussion
Ever since the advent of the IT boom, the creation of software applications has been pro-liferated. As such, many vendors create application to be deployed in different organiza-tions using the usual method of software delivery. But with the evolution of the Applica-tion lifecycle management, integraApplica-tion and collaboraApplica-tion of life-cycle tools features; this will help facilitate delivery and optimization of software applications.
Application Lifecycle Management can deliver a long-term methodology for enhancing the strategic benefits for organizations that invest in application software. The lifecycle concept has predefined steps: Requirements, Design, Build and Test, Deploy, Operate and Opti-mize (Information Technology Infrastructure Library, 2011). This concept basically pre-scribes the best practices for IT service management like integration of 3rd party IT man-agement tools and a resilient IT infrastructure for future upgrade which thus justifies the long term investment on IT services for business.
Even though this concept is very lucrative, there are still certain setbacks in the lifecycle management tools that have been developed for the market. Just like other lifecycle tools, SAP Solution Manager has features that are unused or underused by the customers. In 2010, based on the research done by Panaya Inc on SAP Solution Manager, the statistic re-vealed that even though 42% of customers experienced the benefit of system control, there were still 20% of the respondents who were unsure about the benefits they received. 32% complained they had as main challenge the complexity of the tool, 25% did not understand the value of the tool and 15% find it very costly to utilize (Panaya Inc, 2010). This is not a generalization for all lifecycle management tools, but due to the fact that SAP being at the leading edge of major system integrators who are developing lifecycle tools, we find this statistics quite plausible for most of the upcoming lifecycle tools.
In order to address the research focus, we put into perspective the fact that most organiza-tions do not understand the plausibility of this new concept. We aimed at outlining the po-tential benefits underlying SAP Solution Manager, while not disregarding the challenges that organizations come across. We made use of a case study with data collection through a survey, in which we closely and properly examine the customer‟s user experiences. This study aims at inductively advocating the logical concepts that can apply for most organiza-tions with the need to understand the leverage that the application lifecycle management tool SAP Solution Manager, can bring to their organizations both now and in the long run.
1.3
Research Question
On grounds of the thorough discussion above, the following research questions have been pinpointed as a guide to achieve the research goal:
What are the potential benefits of deploying SAP Solution Manager as Appli-cation Lifecycle Management?
This main question can be attained through the following sub-question, which facilitates the understanding process further:
What are the major challenges encountered in the utilization of SAP Solution Manager?
These two questions are targeted basically at the customers who still find the use of SAP Solution Manager and the entire concept of Application Lifecycle Management very bleak. Also, users/developers of SAP Solution Manager can have a better perspective of how this tool can be used to its full potentials, thereby optimizing business output.
1.4
Purpose
This is a basically an exploratory study: in which we seek to investigate the Application Lifecycle Management concept and the potential benefits of deploying SAP Solution Man-ager; while bringing out the challenges that most users have experienced thus far with the use of this tool.
Our focus in on the understanding of the lifecycle management concept and how the func-tional capabilities embedded in the ALM tool SAP Solution Manager can be used to their full potentials. A case study has been carried out to collect relevant information that is be-ing used to explain SAP Solution Manager, its main capabilities or functional tools, and thus bring out its potential benefits while seeking how to conquer the challenges that make this product intimidating to its users. The data collected with the use of a survey n the case study is carefully analyzed qualitatively using the theories obtained from relevant related lit-erature sources. The questions in the questionnaire are targeted to SAP customers who are presently using the SAP Solution Manager. Results from the survey serve as an empirical qualification for why users of SAP Solution Manager should find an appropriate logical rea-son to deploy this tool, and the most effective way of making use of its full functionalities. As a matter of fact, this thesis should enable SAP customers and SAP-partner system inte-grators find plausible responses to the following basic questions:
1. What are the potential business benefits (long term and short term) gained in using SAP Solution Manager as an ALM tool?
2. How useful are the tools and features embedded in SAP Solution Manager to the organization‟s business processes?
3. How justifiable is the ROI of SAP Solution Manager?
1.5
Delimitations
As previously mentioned, the authors seek to explore the new concept of application deliv-ery using the ALM tool SAP Solution Manager. Being a white paper research, we propose the potential benefits of deploying SAP Solution Manager while we suggest ways of tack-ling the challenges that users encountered thus far with this tool. We do understand that the market may not be ready to welcome this concept, and organizations are more
com-fortable with the traditional methods of software delivery. But still we recognize the pre-sent problems of application compatibility and cross integration with peer applications; and these situations could be mitigated if a lifecycle approach is used in application delivery. In order to gain full potentials available in applications and other collaborative tools, fortu-nately ALM tools like SAP Solution Manager have emerged as platforms where all these applications can be managed.
Due to our lack of hands-on experience with SAP Solution Manager, we basically have a theoretical approach where we align past researches done on this topic and we backed it up with a case study on SAP Solution Manager to demonstrate and create an empirical solu-tion to this research. The fact that we make use of a survey means there are inherent limits to the level of generalization that can be made on the outcome of the study. Certain vital data could be further collected if we had a semi-structured interview with SAP customers or partner integrators. Thus our research is targeted to the users of the ALM tool SAP So-lution Manager, as our questionnaires in the survey are aimed at bringing out the potential benefits of this tool, while advancing possible solutions to the present problems incurred thus far.
Also, this research does not include a thorough study on any other ALM but SAP Solution Manager only. Accordingly, this implies that the result obtained from this study is aimed at SAP customers and SAP-partner integrators primarily, even though it might be useful to non-SAP customers/users.
1.6
Disposition
Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Method Chapter 4 Frame of Reference Chapter 3 Literature ReviewThis chapter introduces the concept of ALM holistically and mo-tivates the purpose of this report so the reader can understand the essence of the studies.
This part of the report includes appropriate methods, in which the research is done, as such justifying the reliability and validity of the results obtained.
Concept related literatures to the theme of Application Lifecy-cle Management are being discussed at this section of the re-port. Note should be taken that this essence of this review is to provide relevant holistic knowledge about this field of stud-ies to our readers only and not to be used in the analysis of collected data.
Theoretical frameworks are being outlined here, which are used later in the proper analysis of the data collected from the online survey carried out.
1.7
Definitions
Application Lifecycle Management (ALM): Having an absolute definition for Applica-tion Lifecycle Management is not very easy. Different software vendors have tried different definitions for this concept, but they have subjective definitions based on their perspectives. Application Lifecycle Management thus has to be defined in a broader manner in order to encompass the entire processes involved. In essence, Application Lifecycle Management includes the entire period an organization takes in investing on its assets, from the incep-tion of the idea to the end of the applicaincep-tion‟s life (Chappell et al, 2008).
Systems Application and Products in Data Processing (SAP): SAP is a world leader in delivering business solutions through the use of comprehensive business software applica-tions and services to customers around the world. They are basically major ERP integrators with the Slogan that goes “The Best-run Businesses Run SAP”. It is a German founded company and they have their major market share in Europe and North America.
SAP Solution Manager (Sol Man): This is an application management platform devel-oped by SAP to be used to manage, provide integrated tools, methodologies and support on the entire SAP solution landscape.
Chapter 7 Conclusion Chapter 5 Empirical Findings Chapter 6 Analysis Chapter 8 Discussion and Reflec-tion
Here, we collect data by carry out an online survey in which SAP Customers/Partner System Integrators recount their experiences with the use of this tool.
The data collected is being analyzed with the theories from the framework to support for a constructive judgment to our findings.
This chapter concludes the report and presents appropriate suggestions to our research questions of this inductively done research.
This section presents an overall discussion based on the out-come of this study and possible suggestions of ways we could do further researches on this topic in the future
System Integration: Integration is a complex term that must be used in context in order to make sense. In this paper, we refer to integration within the context of enterprise sys-tems. Whereby, data there is the no need for data to be stored multiple times or at different places in order to be accessed by all the software applications. Updates in any application module are also instantaneously reflected on every other tool across the business logic layer (Enterprise Integration Inc., 2006). Proper integration of system tools (lifecycle tools) for system synchronization adapted by the use of open integration standards like Web services Application Programming Interfaces (API), (Carey et al, 2006).
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is a way of looking at the complete cost of an asset, in-cluding initial acquisition, maintenance, required training, repairs, and other associated costs. The concept of TCO began to be used in a widespread manner in the financial world in the late 1980s, when new technologies were being rapidly developed and it was some-times difficult for companies to understand the value of their assets. TCO appears com-monly in the automotive and technology industries, where consumers are encouraged to weigh the TCO of products that they purchase. (WiseGEEK, 2011)
2
Method
This part of the report includes appropriate approach in which the research is done and data collection tech-niques, as such justifying the reliability and validity of the results obtained.
Saunders, Lewis & Thornhill (2007), prescribe the research onion with the following: re-search philosophy, rere-search approach, the rere-search strategy, the rere-search choice and basi-cally the theoretical procedures, which we adopt in our research.
Figure 1 The Research Onion
Source: Adapted from Saunders et al. (2007, p.132)
2.1
Hermenuism
This section describes the procedure of the thesis. Saunders et al., 2007 described the re-search onion, which has different layers, and approaches that explain the method an aca-demic research should be conducted. Saunders et al., 2007 describes positivism as an objec-tive existence of reality, that is not susceptible to change based on human minds or judg-ment. Contrary to this philosophy is hermeneutic school of thought, which advances the fact that humans cannot be replaced in their role as social actors. This is an interpretive philosophy useful in the analysis of qualitative data.
Considering the essence of our research, which is based on the qualitative analysis of quan-titative data, we adopt a mix of positivism and hermeneutics. Positivism in the sense of all the data collected through the survey matters, and will not be reduced. This data will be presented empirically as it is. Hermeneutics because we are sensitive to the fact that this ar-ea of informatics involves humans and this aspect cannot be ignored. Hence we adopt a qualitative analysis to produce the essential results to our research purpose.
2.2
Research Approach
The two most common ways to classify a research approach is the: deductive and inductive approaches respectively.
The deductive approach works from more general to the more specific. There is a general theory in the beginning, then making the observations to confirm hypothesis. Deductive approach generally use the arguments based on laws, rules and accepted principles during the test process which usually need to collect quantitative data. The conclusion usually fol-lows logically from premises (available facts).
The inductive approach works the other way; it aims at moving from specific observations to broader generalizations and subsequently a theory (Bryman & Bell, 2007). At first mak-ing some specific observations, then accordmak-ing to the results of the observations, givmak-ing some tentative hypothesis, finally getting a theory. So the observation is the foundation of inductive approach. Usually it requires the qualitative data. Conclusions made are likely based on premises.
Figure 2 The research approach V model. Source: Bryman & Bell (2007)
As previously mentioned, what we are researching is quite a fairly new concept, which im-plies there are very minimal grounded theories that exist to support our claims. We basical-ly make use of conceptual frameworks from SAP and we support it with relative literature reviews. We therefore adopt the inductive approach as our research method. Even though our method of data collection is quantitative (with the use of survey) but then, we use a qualitative method of analysis in order to make the hypothesis and get the plausible theory in the end.
2.3
Research Strategy
The definition of exploratory study is „what is happening; to seek new insight; to ask ques-tions and to assess phenomena in a new light‟ (Robson, 2002:59). Due to the purpose and area of focus of our research, it is obviously an exploratory study. We are going to follow the principal ways of conducting exploratory research:
1. A search of the literature from online repositories like:
JULIA (Jönköping University Library)
Related articles from SAP Developer network community.
Google Scholar
In these repositories, we used information from books, published articles, and journals. 2. Case study: In which we make use of a survey composed of 18 purpose related questions to collect data from the appropriate respondents or experts in our field of re-search (SAP customers and partner integrators).
2.3.1 Case study
The choice of strategy depends on research questions, objectives, existing knowledge, available time and other resources, and your research philosophy. As explained by Robson (2002), a case study entails doing a research on a particular real-time/ real-life concept, through empirical investigations and use of adequate information from different appropri-ate sources. A case study is usually used in qualitative and quantitative studies when finding out solutions to questions like „how‟, „what‟ and „why‟ (Saunders et al. 2007). Yin (2003) distinguishes four different categories of a research, based on two dimensions: Single case v. multiple case; and holistic case v. embedded case.
SAP Solution Manager: Experience with the use of embedded features and func-tionalities.
Our case study is on a set of users of SAP Solution Manager who fall under two categories: SAP Customers and Partner System Integrators. These users are found all around the world, but we they fall under the category needed based on the essence of our thesis irre-spective of their various locations. We have direct access to them through LinkedIn. We had 23 respondents to our questionnaire and their main role was to recount their experi-ences with the use of SAP Solution Manager, bringing out their challenges encountered and benefits attained. Because we are doing the exploratory study and we narrowed our target on SAP Solution Manager as a demonstration of the aim of our thesis, we therefor adopt a single case study in which we requested „experts‟ on SAP Solution Manager to respond to our questionnaire. Due to the uncertainty on how many people were to respond, we made the questionnaire more qualitative in order to get the principal information needed and make the data more valuable to the building of the hypothesis or quest to fulfilling our of this research.
2.4
Research Choice
Saunders et al (2007) proposed two basic research methods: mono method and multiple methods. A mono method makes use of only one technique of data collection and analysis procedure; while multiple methods makes use of more than one technique of data
collec-tion and analysis procedure. Also, using multiple methods can be done either by method or mixed methods. Tashakkori and Teddlie (2003) further explain the multi-method approach uses more than one data collection technique which is limited to either qualitative or quantitative respectively, but with the use of mixed-methods, qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis techniques could be intertwined.
Our research choice is mixed methods. Basically, since we are making using of a survey tool to collect data, the right qualification to our method of data collection is quantitative. Plus, we essentially utilize qualitative methods of data analysis in order to advocate reason-ing behind our aim to brreason-ing out the purpose of our research: which is focused on brreason-ingreason-ing out the potential benefits of SAP Solution Manager as an ALM tool.
2.5
Time Horizon
The time can be divided into cross-sectional and longitudinal. The cross-sectional study means studying a particular phenomenon (or phenomena) at a particular time. Cross-sectional studies often employ the survey strategy (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe & Lowe 2002); The Longitudinal studies concern a study over a long time, which is able to develop and change. Based on the fact that our research is time constrained, we can thus characterize our study as a cross-sectional study. We thoroughly study, conduct a survey and analyze the data in the particular time.
2.6
Data collection
We began with collecting secondary data to gain a basic understanding of application life cycle management and SAP solution manager. This secondary data is used in the analysis o of the primary data collected through the use of a survey with structured questions.
2.6.1 Secondary Data
Secondary data is material that is already gathered by other researchers; it is readily available and is not collected for the specific research task (Lundahl & Skärvad, 1999). We collected secondary data from the Google scholar, published articles, reports and previous researches about SAP Solution Manager. These data played a fundamental role in helping us in under-standing the basic knowledge about ALM and SAP, and also gives us some frameworks that we used in the analysis process.
2.6.2 Primary Data
The Primary data is data that is not available in other literature and which is collected spe-cifically for a research project, usually by interviews, questionnaires or observations (Lun-dahl & Skärvad, 1999). After analyzing the available resources including communication tools, time and knowledge; we came to the conclusion that the use of a questionnaire through a survey is the most appropriate way for us to collect the primary data. To be more specific, we adopted the Internet-mediated questionnaire.
We used the free software called Qualtrics from the internet to form and administer the questionnaire, which enabled the respondents to access the questionnaire conveniently and also easy collection and display of our results. When we formulated the questionnaire we made sure the answers met our research requirements about ALM and SAP Solution Man-ager. We also considered presenting the questionnaire in a manner that is easy for respond-ent read respond to. The survey was posted on SAP Solution Manager group on LinkedIn, since this was the most adequate location to access respondents with good knowledge and
immense interest in Solution Manager. Moreover, acceptance to this group is based on re-lated interest and qualification in relation to SAP Solution Manager. As such, we are con-vinced it was the right method of accessing or getting to our respondents.
2.6.3 Data reliability and validity
The term reliability in research context means the data collection techniques or analysis procedures will yield consistent findings. Valid questionnaire is necessary for the collection of valid and accurate responses, and a reliable questionnaire means the data collected from a questionnaire should be consistent. The respondent must understand a questionnaire as intended by the researcher and as such the questions and answers must make sense (Foddy, 1994).
Usually there are three major threats to reliability: 1. Subject or participant error;
2. Subject or participant bias; 3. Observer error.
In order to mitigate these three threat and enforce reliability and validity:
1. We ensured our respondents are the qualified experts to the field of our research. En-suring they have the appropriate knowledge to make the correct objective responses needed to support our purpose. The LinkedIn platform served as the most adequate location for us to get the right respondents. Plus, the fact that acceptance into this group is based on related qualifications and interest in SAP Solution Manager adds more reasons to why we find the respondents on this platform proficient.
2. We also had to work together creating the questionnaire and in the critically analysis of the data collected.
3. We also had to run a pilot test of the questionnaire on a set of 5 reliable respondents. Their critic was useful in the formulation of the questions to reflect exactly what we ini-tially intended.
4. Participants‟ anonymity was also maintained. We believed we would get more honest responses from the participants if they had the right to stay anonymous. This is best for the interest of the participants and the researchers respectively.
Correlating the results from our survey and the previous survey by Panaya Inc., there found similarities in the benefits attained, challenges encountered and how the users utilize the tools and features found in Solution Manager. This alone gives us some certitude about the reliability and validity our survey and our thesis in general.
2.7
Data Analysis
After data collection, proper extrapolation was done on the data in order to draw a reason-able conclusion. In this stage we adopted the data analysis framework developed by Miles and Huberman (1994). They define data analysis, “as consisting of three concurrent flows of activity: (1) Data reduction, (2) Data display, and (3) Conclusion drawing/verification”. 1. Data reduction helps to sharpen, sort, focus, discard, and organize the data in a way that allows for “final” conclusions to be drawn and verified (Miles & Huberman, 1994). But considering what we are researching is a quite new area, we did not get so much relevant secondary data from previous articles, book or journals. The primary data is displayed
without any reduction but analyzed with focus on presenting the sense of our research, ra-ther than just raw data.
2. Data display means display the reduced data in an organized, compressed way so that conclusions can be more easily drawn. It is a major avenue to valid qualitative analysis (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Our analysis is based in two forms; within-case and cross-case analysis. So after reducing the data we collected, we displayed the data in chart forms and histograms to give a visual perspective of the results.
We analyzed our data with theories from within our case that we obtained from SAP about SAP Solution Manager. In context of cross-case analysis, we did an analysis of our survey result with a previous survey done by Panaya Inc. 2010.
3. Conclusion drawing and verification is the final analytical activity to get a conclusion or theory. Qualitative analysis of data is an interpretive process, in which case the results ob-tained from the analysis can be summarized and used in drawing a conclusion.
The figure below shows the relationship between each step and data collection itself.
Figure 3 Components of data analysis: Miles and Huberman’s interactive model Source: Miles and Huberman (1994)
Yin (1994) proposed two generally analytical strategies of data analysis: relying on theoreti-cal prepositions and developing a case description. The former is a more commonly used strategy, based on collecting questions in accordance to a previously related research and comparing the results of the research with the previously done one (Yin p. 103-104, 1994). While the former strategy is adopted when very little previous research has been done about the topic of subject, thus prescribing a case description is to be created. Since our area of research is fairly untapped, we decided to adopt a mix of both. The decision is based on the fact that we developed our questionnaires based on the SAP Solution Manag-er tool and also on the previous research done by Panaya Inc., and we did our analysis by comparing the results from the data collected with that of the previous research and the features proposed by SAP on SAP Solution Manger. Also, we created a case in which we described the tools embedded in SAP Solution and we analyzed our data in reference with tools in SAP Solution Manger and also the previous research with focus on contributing to the field of study in prescribing a theory for future researches.
3
Literature Review
The following literature review is meant to give the reader a holistic understanding of the concept of Applica-tion Life-Cycle Management. This material is not used for the analysis of empirical data collected, but just to add more knowledge to our readers that will aid them to stay in perspective with the rest of the thesis. The following three approaches are adapted to create a clear image of the state of the Ap-plication Life-cycle Management and how it can be related to the users in the SAP com-munity.
1. Standard Adaptive Life-cycle management. This framework explains the on-going process of developing improved management practices for efficient production and resource conservation by use of participatory learning through continuous systematic assessment.(Tom Morris. August 14, 2008). This is a general framework which is also applicable to users of the SAP Solutions Manager.
2. The Changing Face of Application Life-Cycle Management (Schwaber, Rymer & Stone, 2006). In their article, these authors stated “Today‟s ALM suites don‟t offer much support for ALM beyond what can be accomplished through brittle tool-to-tool integrations. But tomorrow‟s ALM platforms will do much better by providing common services to practitioner tools”. Thus, they present the framework for the first ALM and its shortcomings. Due to the inability for the first ALM suite to an-swer the queries of this domain, the second ALM suite was created with more inte-grated features for tool-to-tool integration.
3. The open Application Life-cycle Management developed by the company Borland (Borland, 2007). They explain the concept of ALM by the creation of an Open ALM Platform with activities, processes and metrics used to investigate the essence of the ALM.
3.1
Standard Adaptive Life-cycle management
From designing an application to releasing it to the market, there are many uncertain factors that may lead to failure. Because the condition can be complex and dynamic like a ecosystem. Holling and others implement these kind of projects with adaptive management which is developed in 1970s by C.S. Holling, and co-workers at the University of British Columbia and is further developed at International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Vienna, Austria. The adaptive management is a iterative approach to achieve the goals that are unknown or uncertain.
An on-going process of developing improved management practices for efficient production and resource conservation by use of participatory learning through continuous systematic assessment (Tom Morris, August 14, 2008)
Adaptive management has been much more influential as an idea than as a way of doing conservation so far (Holling, 1978).
“Process of testing alternative hypotheses through management action, learning from expe-rience, and making appropriate change to policy and management practice” (Northwest Oregon State Forests Management Plan FINAL PLAN Jan. 2001)
“We don‟t know exactly how everything will turn out, and therefore we plan our actions so we can learn from them. We use what we learn to do better in the future.” (Northwest Or-egon State Forests Management Plan FINAL PLAN Jan. 2001)
Much of what we know is wrong; we just don‟t know it. (Walters, 1986)
Figure 4 Standard Adaptive Management Life Cycle Source: Dinsmore and Cabanis-Brewin (2005)
The figure illustrate the six steps of the process:
Step1-Define the Challenge: Find out what kind of problem may emerge and recognize the impaction of policies and practices.
Step2-Design a concept: Thoughtfully choose the best policies and practices to be applied. Step3-Implement the concept: Implemente the designed plan to represent current understanding of system and uncertainties.
Step4-Monitor results: Monitoring of key response indicators.
Step5-Evaluate results: By considering the original objectives, analyzing the outcomes of the management.
Step6-Adjust a concept: using the outcomes to make future decisions. (Like design policies to probe for better understanding)
Participants of adaptive management include producers, agricultural service providers, poli-cy makers, regulators, scientists, and other interested stakeholders. The six steps encourage a thoughtful, disciplined approach to management, without constraining the creativity that is vital to dealing effectively with uncertainty and change. How the steps are applied de-pends on the complexity of the problem and on the imagination of participants (Dinsmore & Cabanis-Brewin, 2005)
3.2
The Changing Face of Application Life-Cycle Management
With the advent of several methods of creating, delivering and optimizing application, the life-cycle management approach was adopted to analyze this process. Forrester defines ALM as: “The coordination of development life-cycle activities, including requirements, modeling, development, build, and testing, through:1) Enforcement of processes that span these activities;
2) Management of relationships between development artifacts used or produced by these activities; and
3) Reporting on progress of the development effort as a whole” (Forrester 2006).
ALM is labor-intensive and error-prone without the integration of life-cycle tools (Carey et al., 2006). Applications need to integrate in order to function properly in a
cross-application environment. Carey et al. proposed how to improve the efficiency of the fol-lowing three pillars of ALM.
1. Traceability of relationships between artifacts. Artifacts here include life-cycle at-tributes like requirements, models, source code, build scripts, and test cases.
2. Automation of high-level processes: ALM improves efficiency by automating paper based processes used in the various faces like design; deploy faces of the life-cycle tool and storing all associated documentation.
3. Providing visibility into the progress of development efforts: There is a need for an objective rather than subjective view into the processes of development going on. Thus, this feature provides room for transparency to exist, facilitating easy monitor-ing of projects by managers (Carey et al., 2006).
The authors have also chosen the following frameworks created by Carey et al. (2006), based on the three pillars of ALM. Two frameworks were created to advocate for the ALM; the first one ALM 1.0, which had shortcomings and that, led to the development of ALM 2.0.
3.2.1.1 Application Life-cycle Management 1.0(ALM 1.0)
In this first framework Carey et al. (2006), described ALM 1.0 as having tool-to-tool inte-gration flaws as seen in the figure below;
Figure 5 ALM 1.0: Today’s ALM suite Source: Adapted from Carey et al. (2006)
Table 1 The Hidden costs of ALM 1.0
Source: Adapted from Carey et al. (2006)
Carey et al. (2006) described the following shortcomings of ALM 1.0 as seen previously in the table above;
A single tool for each role, which leads to low productivity and high investments in licens-ing fee for software applications.
Redundant and inconsistent ALM features locked in practitioner tools, which lead to lack of transparency in cross-life-cycle and thus further cost of customization.
Micro processes embedded in tools and macro processes in tool integrations. The need to manage processes as a portfolio since the micro processes tools need to integrate with the use of the macro processes integration tools. Thus, this entails much efforts spent to build and maintain integration in application.
Integration through brittle repository synchronization mechanisms: “Repository synchroni-zation is used as the main method of life-cycle tool integration today”, which is usually very difficult to establish and even costly to maintain.
3.2.1.2 Application Life-cycle Management 2.0(ALM 2.0)
Due to the shortcomings outlined above with main emphasis on tool-to-tool integration, the se-cond framework ALM 2.0. ALM 2.0 is platform for development and management of development activities (Carey et al.), rather than a collection of life-cycle tools locked. In the aggressive applica-tion development market, there is the need for transparency to ease management and facilitate inte-gration of various processes. As such, the figure below describes the ALM 2.0 framework and its benefits for the future.
Figure 6 ALM 2.0: Tomorrow’s ALM platforms Source: Adapted from Carey et al.(2006)
Table 2 ALM 2.0 benefits
The authors used ALM 1.0 and ALM 2.0 frameworks to show the importance of integra-tion in applicaintegra-tion lifecycles and thus leading to the effective creaintegra-tion and deployment of effective application software applications rather than costly customization at every point of implementation. Thus, Carey et al. (2006) further described the promised benefits of ALM 2.0 as such:
Practitioner tools assembled out of plug-ins, thereby enabling customers to pay on-ly for the features they need rather than buying a comprehensive application, which they may have to customize and may also not have need for most of the features included.
Common services available across practitioner tools. Lately, vendors identify com-mon features available in several practitioner tools. This helps them have an ALM platform that is easy to collaborate and create enhancements for shared feature.
Repository neutrality. The future for ALM 2.0 promises to be truly repository-neutral. The will therefore be no need to migrate old assets and there will be better support for cross-platform optimization.
Use of open integration standards. With lack of integration being one of the main issues plaguing ALM 1.0, ALM2.0 has created the chance for the use of open inte-gration standards and this will ease inteinte-gration between customers, partners and third-party tools.
Micro processes and macro processes governed by externalized workflow. When processes are stored in readable formats like XML files, they can be versioned, au-dited, and reported upon. (Carey et al., 2006)
3.2.2 The open Application Life-cycle Management
Borland define ALM as “Approach aligned with how businesses today are managing the accelerating and adaptive delivery methodologies”. The inability for ALM to reach its full potentials is due to the fact that vendors are tending to lock customers to their propriety IT platforms. This aspect limits the development process of the ALM to the fullest. Borland created the concept of Open ALM as a method to solve the possible integration issues faced when using multiple cross-vendor applications.
The figure below is describes the Open ALM platform created by Borland and its main fea-tures:
Figure 7 Open ALM Platforms Source: Borland (2007).
Borland describes the following characteristics for the Open ALM framework;
Any Process: The value of ALM tools is in their ability to automate, track and
measure key processes in software delivery. Open ALM platform is adapted to support customer‟s established processes irrespective of method like waterfall, Agile, RUP or cus-tom.
Any Tools: Open ALM enables users to utilize any collection of lifecycle tools
(commercial and open-source) that they decide to, at the same time providing traceability and visibility. This enhances ease of management and optimization of tools.
Platform Agnostic: Most organizations have heterogeneous due to the use of
closed proprietary platforms they have from their vendors. Open ALM supports organi-zations with cross platform to integrate easily.
4
Frame of Reference
Theoretical frameworks are being outlined here, which are used later in the proper analysis of the data col-lected from the online survey carried out. These frameworks are directly related to SAP Solution Manager and are most suitable for our research purpose.
4.1
SAP Solution Manager
SAP Solution Manager is an ALM tool, which is used to manage the IT landscape of organ-izations. It is designed for SAP system landscape but can accommodate integration of IT tools from other vendors or basically distributed systems. In a SAP system landscape there could be many installed SAP systems. The SAP solution manager is aimed at reducing and centralizing the management of these systems and optimizing the full potential of the SAP landscape. It makes the SAP systems work more efficiently and effectively to get the high speed of innovation and integration, risk and total cost of operations (TCO). So with the help of SAP solution manager, the SAP customers can implement high-quality solutions faster and operate them at lower cost. Solution Manager focuses on the core business pro-cesses while targeting both the technical and business propro-cesses of the organization (Funk, 2009). As described in the figure below, SAP Solutions has a very holistic approach in their design for the management an IT infrastructure. SAP puts into consideration core business processes, organization, services, tools and the external processes involved. (Funk, 2009)
Figure 8 Application Life-cycle Management from SAP Source: Funk (2009)
4.1.1 SAP Solution Manager Features and Functions
The core concept of SAP solution manager is Application Life-cycle Management. The ALM has six main steps:
1. Requirements: recognize what is needed now.
2. Design: get a preliminary blue print to meet the requirements. 3. Build & Test: build the new solution and test it.
4. Deploy: release the new solution to the real use. If needed, make some suitable change. 5. Operate: keep the solution working and make full use of it.
6. Optimize: optimize the current solution and prepare for the next life cycle.
Figure 9 SAP Solution Manager Features
Source: SAP System Developer Network (retrieved 2011-05-02)
The details of the main features and functionalities are described in details below;
SAP Business Suite implementation and upgrades- Solution Manager facilitates implementation, as well as it provides project administration and central control for ease of cross component implementation. It also contains configuration infor-mation, which not only eases initial implementation but also implementation of up-grades.
Change control management- The Solution Manager has the functionality to control all software configurations as well as any changes in the IT solution like ap-proval for changes request, changes deployment and analysis. The result of this functionality is qualitative solution and traceability of all changes for future refer-ences.
Testing- SAP Solution Manager has a single point of access to the entire system, where testing can be easily done and test results and testing materials can also be stored. Thus, Solution Manager has the capability to speed test preparation and ex-ecution.
IT and application support- Solution Manager has a service desk for the system landscape which is centralized and helps manage decision making for settlement of support costs. As such, this ease of handling of processes makes the organization function efficiently.
Root cause analysis- SAP Solution manager also includes a diagnostics feature used for identification, analysis and resolution of problems caused by heterogene-ous environments. This thus facilitates the isolation of problem areas and records the activity of single users and multiple users activities. As a result, changes in the production landscape are being identified and problem resolution is faster thereby leading to increase in business productivity.
Solution monitoring- SAP Solution manager helps in the easy real-time monitor-ing of the system, interfaces, business processes, thereby reducmonitor-ing administration efforts. It proactively monitors intersystem dependencies and avoid precarious is-sues. It also has functionality for automatic notifications for faster response to identified problems.
Service-level management and reporting- Definition of service-levels and auto-matic reporting are also essential features embodies in Solution Manager. The re-porting system covers the entire system landscape and unifies rere-porting that will eventually contain information used by management for strategic decision-making.
Service processing- The SAP Solution Manager provides service proposals and SAP support services. This enables the system to reduce technical risk using SAP safeguarding; SAP Solution Management Optimization, for optimizing the SAP so-lution; and SAP Empowering, for the management of the implemented solutions.
Administration- This features offers a central work centre and unified access to all SAP technology from this central location even though tasks are being executed lo-cally on the associated systems.
There are several processes taking place to optimize business continuity and agility when going through these six steps of ALM. These processes include: Solution Documentation, Innovation Management, Template Management, Test Management, Change Control Man-agement, Application Incident ManMan-agement, Technical Operations, Business Process Op-erations, Maintenance Management and Upgrade Management.
Figure 10 Application Life-cycle Management Processes Across the Life-cycle Phases Source: Source: Funk (2009)
Martin Flegenheimer, IT Director, Ferrero Germany stated: “Using the SAP Solution Manager tool is an excellent way of covering the live cycle of a solution. It enables us to control every step, from the design, to the realization to the IT operation of the system, and guaranteeing a full tracking and a very effective introduction of the system. We con-sidered we obtained substantial benefits with this adoption, reducing TCO and above all we were successful to manage complex projects and edge operations” (Funk, 2009). The SAP will provide a series of services to help the customer to implement and take full
use of the SAP solution manager. The services include training, practical experience and expert on demand that let the customers understand how to use and configure the SAP solution manager. They will help the customers to define their own roadmaps to efficient application life-cycle management by concerning several factors. For example, the maturi-ty of your IT processes, the specific IT projects and project pipeline or cost pressure and cost structure compared with peers.
4.2
Panaya Inc. SAP Solution Manager Survey
4.2.1 BackgroundPanaya is established in 2006. It provides Software-as-a-Service solutions that enable com-panies that use SAP to save up to 50% of their application lifecycle costs and minimize the risks associated with system changes. Panaya provides a complete solution for managing these changes, explaining how to fix the anticipated issues, fixing most of them automati-cally, suggesting the most efficient test plan, and calculating required project budget and re-sources.
4.2.2 SAP Solution Manager Survey
Panaya conducted a survey about SAP Solution Manager. The purpose of the survey is learning how SAP customers use SAP Solution Manager and what challenges and benefits they associate with it. By asking current users of SAP Solution Manager about their usage habits, other SAP customers can benefit from understanding what the most useful features are and where third party solutions can enhance and complement SAP Solution Manager. The results of this survey are based on 347 responses collected from SAP customers and system integrators worldwide through a standardized online questionnaire during April of 2010.
Key findings:
The top reason cited for using SAP Solution Manager is Central System Admin-istration (19%), followed by System Monitoring (14%) and Project Management (13%).
The top benefit of using SAP Solution Manger is Control (42%). A substantial 20% of the respondents are unsure of what benefit they receive from SAP Solution Manager.
The Complexity of SAP Solution Manager is the biggest challenge in using the sys-tem (32%). One quarter of the respondents do not understand the value of SAP Solution Manager and find that to be a challenge.
Documenting business process in SAP Solution Manager is key for using some of its advanced functionality. But 42% of the respondents have not documented any of their business processes in SAP Solution Manager and only 3% have fully docu-mented their business processes.
System Monitoring is the most used features of SAP Solution Manager. Service Desk, Job Scheduling, and Incident Management are the least used features.
On average, SAP Solution Manager features go unused by 51% of the respondents, 10% use them rarely, 16% use them partially, 12% use them quite a bit, and only 8% use them fully.
4.3
Potential Benefits of SAP Solution Manager
The potential benefits of SAP Solution Manager can be sorted into business benefits and IT benefits. These benefits are proposed by SAP AG as potential benefits that could be at-tained if the tools and features of SAP Solution Manager are properly understood and de-ployed. The following list shows the specific benefits based on these two categories (SAP AG, 2011).
4.3.1 Business Benefits
Flexible business strategies –By using SAP Solution Manager, the business strat-egies can be more flexible and visible which are easier to refine them.
Innovative business processes –SAP Solution Manager makes it possible to re-structure the existing systems to support innovative business processes.
Superior business value –SAP Solution Manager provides the organization a business-focused infrastructure that supports continuous improvement of process-es. It reduces the cost and risk of initiating new processes that give organization the superior business value.
Improved business performance –With the help of SAP Solution Manager, the organization will obtain the right insight to make the appropriate improvements because it can aggregate and analyze the information across the whole organization.
Unmatched user experience –SAP Solution Manager gives an efficient user expe-rience through a role-based portal interface. It is easier to extend the business pro-cesses to employees, customers and suppliers.
Enhance company’s competence – The Company needs to release the new products or service before others to occupy the market. By using SAP Solution Manager, the company will accelerate the software development that helps to re-lease the new services in time.
4.3.2 IT Benefits
Sustainable cost structure – SAP Solution Manager optimizes the full potential of SAP landscape that will build a sustainable cost structure. Its flexibility will reduce the cost of change. The integration knowledge can reduce the need for consulting services
Enhance the effective of software developing –According to the fact, when us-ing the traditional way to develop the software, there is high rate of failure which make company can not release the new software in time. SAP Solution Manager can integrate each step together, if one step change, others can change relatively. So if the requirement changes, the model can change quickly to develop with new re-quirement. In reverse, if the developing processes change, the whole application mode will reflect the changes.
Easy development of extensible best practices – SAP Solution Manger sup-ports knowledge management, communication and collaboration across existing systems. The company can take advantage of existing skills to improve current practices or develop new functionality.
Bring better management and control - In the past, the project manager does not know the process of software development clearly. So it is hard to judge whether the product can be developed in time. But through the information SAP Solution Manager provide, the project manager can see the processes clearly. For example, the index can show the implement processes of the project.
5
Empirical Findings
This section contains a presentation of the collect data from our online survey. This is basically raw data displayed, accompanied with graphical representations, to be later used in the next chapter for analysis. 23 respondents completed this survey. The software we used to make the questionnaire provided different graph forms for data display, which we used as seen below.
5.1
Data display:
Background Information:There are 14 respondents from the organizations that are SAP-partner system integrators. The remaining 9 respondents are from organizations that are SAP customers. Most of them (18) are working in businesses in the IT field.
Figure 11 Respondent business domains
The respondents are distributed in different company sizes: 8 from small companies (reve-nues of less than one billion US dollars), 3 from midsize companies ($1-6B in reve(reve-nues), while 12 from large companies (revenues over 6 billion dollar).
There were 10 respondents who stated their companies have deployed SAP Solution Man-ager for more than 5 years while other 13 respondents are from organizations that have deployed it for less than 5 years.
Figure 13Years of SAP Solution Manager deployment in organizations
12 respondents have also worked with SAP Solution Manager for more than 5 years while the other 11 respondents have worked with it for less than 5 years.
Figure 14Years of respondents working experience with Solution Manager
There are 15 respondents with certifications in application (application certifications for specific SAP solutions). 8 respondents are certified in technology (associate and profes-sional levels certifications ranging from enterprise architecture to system administration). And the remainig two respondents are certified in development (expert knowledge on SAP Business One and SAP Net Weaver application development).
Usage of Features and functionalities
The most important feature of SAP Solution Manager is change control management (4.22), followed by solution monitoring (4.09).
Figure 16Most important features of SAP Solution Manager
The top three reasons to use SAP Solution Manager are change request management (35%), system monitoring (26%) and central system administration (17%).
There are 16 respondents who agree that their organizations use the documentation feature on Solution Manager to documents its business processes. The other 7 respondents re-sponded negative.
Figure 18Use of Documentation
“SAP Solution Manager has a centralized real-time monitoring feature that is used in your organization to monitor the system, its interfaces and even the business processes in-volved.” gets the most agreements as one of the facts about the use of a feature and func-tionality.
Figure 19Facts about features of Solution Manager
16 respondents (70%) describe SAP Solution Manager as being solution/result oriented, while 6 respondents (26%) think it is technology oriented.
Figure 20User perspective of Solution Manager
In general, 65% of the respondents rate SAP Solution Manager good while 30% respond-ents give the very good rate.
Figure 21Overall rating of SAP Solution Manager Benefits AND Challenges
Business benefits:
Improved business performance is the business benefit most respondents‟ organizations (73%) achieved. Nearly half of the total respondents‟ organizations (45%) achieved the business benefit, innovative business processes.
IT benefits:
The top IT benefit is reduced TCO across the entire IT landscape (77%). The second top IT benefits is easy development of extensible best practices (55%).
Figure 23Top IT benefits of SAP Solution Manager
The top three challenges are lack of understanding of the value of Solution Manager (73%), lack of skills (41%) and complexity of SAP Solution Manager (36%).
There are exactly half of the respondents who are satisfied with the Total Cost of Owner-ship (TCO) of SAP Solution Manager in their organizations; and 18% respondents are also very satisfied with it.
Figure 25Satisfaction of TCO of SAP Solution Manager
The top three features the respondents hope can be improved in next version are: SAP Business Suite implementation and upgrades (52%), solution monitoring (48%) and change control management (43%).
6
Analysis
This section provides a proper analysis of the data collected from the survey, done with the use of the frame-works from the frame of reference, in order to support for constructive judgment to our findings.
After collection of data, we adopted the model of qualitative data analysis by Miles and Huberman (1994). Analysis done with a focus on the essence of words from the interview rather than entire raw data collected. We reduced the data, made sense of the data and connected the data to the theories in this research. The point here is to present the data in the form that can adhere to the essence of our research. The Inductive approach is being adopted as previously mentioned, and the data collected from the survey is correlated with the previous research done by Panaya Inc. and the description of the tools embedded in SAP Solution Manager as proposed by SAP.
The analysis of this survey is presented in the following manner:
1. Utilization of features and functionalities of SAP Solution Manager: SAP So-lution Manager has different features with different functionalities. Most customers do not understand the use of most of the features and thereby find the software sophisticated. In this section of the analysis, we touch base on the customer‟s expe-rience with the use of these features (if they use it, how they use it and what they use it for). We juxtaposed their experiences with SAPs holdings on the various of-fering of SAP Solution Manager. Thereby creating a meaning conclusion on their differences and similarities based on their various experiences with Solution Man-ager. This analysis is meant to create a balance between the perceptions of SAP and the users on „how‟ and „what‟ SAP Solution Manager is.
2. Benefits and Challenges in using SAP Solution Manager: In this section of the analysis, we collocated the benefits of SAP Solution Manager from both the per-spectives of SAP and its customers. The essence here is to bring out connections between the benefits of SAP Solution Manager and how its users optimize it. Also, the respondents experienced certain challenges with the use of this tool. Their chal-lenges were analyzed with reference to the chalchal-lenges recorded from the previous survey by Panaya Inc. (2010), and with the SAP offerings as solutions to the previ-ously experienced challenges from SAP‟s customers. This section is vital in bringing out the correspondence between the challenges experienced and the various bene-fits of SAP Solution Manager.
3. Rating of Solution Manager: The discussion done in this part of the analysis is aimed at pinpointed the overall impression of how the users perceive Solution Manager and what features they feel deserves improvement in its future releases. The ratings and suggestions gotten from our survey are also being compared with those of the former survey in order to establish certain facts about how the users experience this software as a lifecycle management tool.
This is analysis is done with the primary aim at accentuating the potential benefits of SAP Solution Manager, and how SAP offerings can counteract or mitigate the major challenges experienced with the use of this tool by its users. For this reason, we hope the outcome of the analysis is to adhere to the essence of our research paper and con-tribute a fundamental knowledge to this fairly virgin field of research.
