~ Inefficient process management costs enterprises up to £600,000 per year ~

August 23rd, 2012: Redwood Software, the IT and business process automation experts, uncover research data that manually undertaking SAP® system copy is time-consuming, expensive and inefficient.

SAP recommends that enterprises perform system copies to create test, demo and training systems. The process is also required for migration, disaster recovery, and when a company changes its operating system and/or database. It’s a critical operation for any SAP enterprise.

Independent research conducted by IZEN Marketing, on behalf of Redwood, calculated the significant costs and risks involved in manually executing SAP system copy. Researchers examined how many times enterprises undertake the manual process each year as well as the cost in time and human resources.

Research reveals:

92 percent of respondents use at least five employees to manually run system copy, with some using 20 people or more to undertake the critical task

61 percent of those surveyed claimed it takes five days to run the process manually, and 35 percent said the process takes even longer

56 percent of the companies surveyed run system copy quarterly, with 25 percent running the process only every six months

This means that, based on an average employee’s daily working wage[ii], most enterprises lose around £52,000 per year performing system copy manually[iii]. Organisations that invest particularly large amounts of human resources to the exercise may, in fact, lose up to £600,000 annually.

“Most companies now have to operate large and complex ERP systems landscapes”, says Dr. Derek Prior, Research Director at Gartner. “Regular system copies are important, but they are time-consuming and expensive if handled manually, which is what the great majority of IT departments do today.”

“It’s worrying that so many enterprises accept the status quo when it comes to undertaking critical processes within their organisation,” said Tijl Vuyk, CEO, at Redwood Software. “SAP system copy doesn’t get the attention it deserves, despite being essential for upgrades, testing and disaster recovery. Business are often reluctant to run system copy as often as they should because of the pain and costs associated with it. But putting system copy lower on the list of priorities only exacerbates other problems, creating a vicious circle. It’s actually in a company’s best interests to make sure the process is undertaken more frequently in an efficient and automated manner.”

“Business process automation can eliminate traditional barriers that have held enterprises back in the past. With end-to-end process automation, enterprises can be empowered to undertake SAP system copy more frequently, more effectively and with increased reliability. This subsequently helps to achieve greater IT alignment with the overarching business strategy,” concluded Vuyk.

For more information on automating SAP system copy please see here.