It is convincing to many that in-house SAP support teams are better to manage and indeed it is true. This is because they are proximate and are available all the time for communication as well as feedback. And hence corrective actions are way easier, leading to better control and monitoring.

While this may be true, there is another side to it. Many enterprises today are faced with roadblocks pertaining to SAP implementation, support, and maintenance. These roadblocks hamper their mission-critical tasks and consequently the focus shifts from business management to operational patch-ups. For example:

• The dearth of a trained in-house talent pool
• Attrition of key talent
• Scalability of talents which is a major concern
• High costs of talent
• lack of dedicated teams

Therefore, It is compulsive to stick to the current implementation of the SAP version, considering the above challenges. But as a consequence, there is no scope for innovation or implementation of advanced SAP products that may be of real use to the business. This is to say, with an outdated IT architecture, enhancing the business process improvements to adapt to the changing needs of the business could be an impossible task. The opportunity cost of not innovating is huge and hence could result in:

• No state-of-the-art technology so as to support the mission-critical business
• Poor SWOT position owing to lack of innovation
• Lack of access to improved data predictions due to status quo
• Poor decision-making capability
• Possibility of not sustaining the competition
• Furthermore, results in poor customer experience
• Increased cost for consequence management, in other words, damage control
• Finally, results in customer dissatisfaction leading to business fall out