Effective Approaches to BRIM Project Challenges

In this episode of Acuiti Talks, Rishi Singh, Head of SAP Practice at Acuiti Labs, explores the real-world challenges companies often face during SAP BRIM implementation. He shares unique and effective approaches that businesses can adopt to navigate these complexities successfully. Rishi also discusses how Acuiti Labs tailors its strategies for clients across various industries and gives a sneak peek into what’s next in their SAP BRIM offerings.

Transcript

Welcome back to another episode of our podcast series Acuiti Talks. In this series, we are going to be continuing our conversation with Rishi, the head of SAP practice at Acuiti Labs. We are very excited to have him on board again

Thanks Rhea for inviting me again. Very excited to have this conversation.

Yeah, that’s great. I think the first question that we can touch base on today is going to be, what are the common challenges that companies face during BRIM implementation?

Good question, Rhea. So generally, BRIM transformations are a large program. The scope of work is massive. So, this transformation happens on organizations wherein they’re still using old, integrated systems, I think change management is one of the big reasons for the success or failure of this transformation. Second is business transformation. It should not be confused, just because the SAP BRIM is an I.T. technology. It’s a technology, but it’s to optimize their business processes. So ideally it should be a business-led transformation rather than IT-led. Third thing is, with technology evolving, there is a perception that the SAP BRIM could also be a plug and play, type of a technology, but it’s not. And this is where whenever a business is talking about such, big scope of work, they should have an assessment of what BRIM can bring to the table.

Even before starting on the journey. Some level of assessment should go in just to understand what all the business objectives are and then that can drive the project objective. If all these factors are kept in mind, there’s no point that engagement will not be a success.

I think there are a few points which kind of like it’s not just during implementation. It starts from before, and I think it continues after. So, do you think there are any unique approaches in your experience that you think that companies can adopt to implement?

Correct. So again, as I said, it means business versus IT led. That will be one of the prime factors and it’s very important that we have executive or sponsorship and involvement. Not at a very high level, but understanding how things are moving, that is very important because that reflects the seriousness of the program to the people within the organization.

Again, it’s a business process optimization, right? So, from day one business, the key business users, the CFOs or his/her team should be involved from day one, understanding what is getting changed. If you’re talking about process optimization or transformations, they should be part of those discussions, too.

Then again, we are talking about a big piece of work, right? You’re moving from an outdated old system. The whole reason of moving to BRIM is, you want to be ahead in the curve to your competition. When we are doing this transformation, again, it should not be just a lift and shift of what you are doing, right. It’s a time when you can take a step back, understand what you have to do, what you are planning for your upcoming future and this is where there should be a discussion between what your current business requirement is and what are the best practices around the world. Again, what will help you meet your objectives in the coming year as well. So that is also very important for success or what business is looking from this.

Do you think there is a certain approach that we as a company take when customers of, let’s say, different industries come to us? With their implementation?

Yes, definitely. We are heavily invested in competency building. In my previous, our previous podcast, I talked about the importance of domain experience. Again, it’s Business vs IT. It’s not IT, it’s a business getting transformed. So, until you don’t understand the business, until you speak their language, it will be very difficult even for them to communicate what their challenges are.

This is where we invest a lot in building the knowledge base. We have got a lot of accelerators, which we keep on refining, that not only helps us have accelerators or IPs ready. Which can fast track the overall implementation, but also helps our people understand because they are refining those and learning the business.

And again, as we’re talking about the competency building. Solution architecture is very important for any engagement and every business will have a certain uniqueness in what they have to offer. When we are implementing, there’ll be a couple of design discussions. We try capturing all those key design documents so that tomorrow or any of that engagement, if we come across a similar situation or scenario, we are not reinventing the wheel.

We can refer back to that because will have Why, What was decided, and how it was decided. So, anyone new coming in as well? They will have references ready so that everything helps us, in supporting us on this journey. And I think in the previous podcast, I also talked about modifying or tailoring the activate methodology for BRIM in particular.

So, we use all these accelerators when we talk about the project management or project phases explored when we have a lot of conversations with the customer, from the business department gathering. So rather than going to PPTs, some talks, we use our accelerators. Either we build one end-to-end business process in their system, or we use our accelerators when we are talking to them, they can see how the system is behaving, how the data is moving from end to end.

That makes the conversation more engaging. And they can also see where they are and how things will change. So, they also feel excited and more engaged and when they see the system working, they see that confidence that these guys have done it in the past and they can support the journey.

So, these are key drivers, I think, which helps us, when we talk about, the entire project methodology. Sometimes definitely you can factor in how during the project management phases or project delivery phases, we are different to how others operate.

So, I think, Rishi, we’ve covered a bunch of points here. My next question would be that, like you said before, we have seen the product SAP BRIM in various stages and seen it mature. So, I think the most likely question that comes to mind is where is it headed now? Or what is next from Acuiti as well in terms of BRIM.

Yeah. The way business is transforming and evolving, BRIM is the product which evolves and is evolving with every release. The SAP is coming with new features and across the segment or the suite of different modules within BRIM. We identified a gap. So, SAP BRIM, largely is a back end, drive billing system, But what we observed is every customer, we implement BRIM, they try to build their own front end, portal or whatever business likes, for their customer facing.

So, we identified that gap, and which primarily is required for every other customer. We definitely have good experience with the system integration of consulting, but we work a lot on product development as well. And we recently launched the Q2C portal, which is a part of the development stream. This will be a game changer because it comes with a standard integration with SAP BRIM.

So, every time a customer is looking for a solution, they don’t need to develop a portal or a tool for the customer on their own because TCO, the maintenance also becomes very high. Q2C is custom-made for SAP BRIM. It is a self-serve customer-facing tool which can manage or do whatever a general customer looks for, customer can login and see their invoices, make their payments, online.

Raise disputes if they are not happy with their invoices. So, anything and everything. Which a customer would need for the management of the subscription or the invoices. Everything is available there. So that is one thing which we think, and AI is a hot new topic, in the market. And not only SAP but we also are working on some cash applications or areas within that collection management where we can efficiently utilize AI, to bring value to the customer. You can see how a lot of manual work which is currently being done can be reduced.

That we definitely are working on there are few engagements where we are trying to experiment with how it can help our customers. We can’t remain behind in this journey. So definitely not to. And for this we definitely have an innovation and ideation forum within the organization. So, we welcome anyone who can support us in this core journey.

Thank you. Rishi, I think this has been another very insightful session of our podcast series, and it was great to have you on board here. I’m sure our viewers learned a lot from this.

Thanks for hosting me again, Rhea.

Thank you, viewers, for attending another episode of our podcast series, Acuiti Talks. In this series, we highlighted and delved deeper into the intricacies of BRIM and also explored various other different topics that go along with it. We also talked about where it is headed as the product has matured now, and what’s next from Acuiti Labs. So, we hope to see you again in our next series where we will be talking about another very interesting topic. Until then, I’m your host, Rhea. Thank you.