Hager Group Success Story

01.11.2023

SAP Solution Manager as a Test Tool:
S/4HANA Project Success

Q: What Did the Preparations for Using SolMan Entail?

• The project kicked off with workshops in which XEPTUM familiarized Hager Group representatives, including the S/4HANA program manager and employees from the relevant business areas, with the numerous testing features available within SAP Solution Manager. • Afterwards, solution documentation, test management and defect management concepts were developed jointly. SolMan was then customized to map Hager Group's test strategy in an optimum manner. • Training sessions were held specifically to prepare users from the relevant business areas for testing activities with SAP Solution Manager. The scalability of the solution made it possible to easily have up to 700 testers in the testing phase simultaneously.

Whenever a company migrates to SAP S/4HANA, test management presents numerous challenges and pitfalls. Thanks to SAP Solution Manager and competent support from XEPTUM, Hager Group mastered this complex task on time and to the best quality.

Hager Group is a leading supplier of solutions and services for electrical installations in residential, commercial and industrial buildings – from energy distribution and cable management through to intelligent building control and security technology. Founded in 1955, with its head office in Blieskastel, Saarland, the company now employs 12,900 people at 20 locations worldwide and has customers in more than 100 countries all over the world.

Why Are Testing Activities so Important in S/4HANA Projects?

As an important digitalization milestone, Hager Group wanted to replace the aging SAP ERP Central Component system (SAP ECC) and convert it into a modern S/4HANA platform by adopting a brownfield approach. The migration project, which lasted almost three years, made it absolutely necessary to plan and conduct the accompanying test phases as this was the only way to ensure that the complex transformation project and all business processes implemented would function effectively.

Why Did Hager Group Choose SAP Solution Manager?

Thanks to its numerous powerful features, Hager Group chose SAP Solution Manager (SolMan) to manage its wide range of testing activities. In addition, they chose XEPTUM as their project partner because of the IT consulting firm's ability to also demonstrate a high level of process and functional expertise for this special use of SolMan.

SAP Solution Manager: Test Tool for SAP Projects

SAP Solution Manager for End-to-End Mapping of All Test Phases: Planning, Implementation, and Evaluation of All Testing Activities.

What Did the Preparations for Using SolMan Entail?

The project kicked off with workshops in which XEPTUM familiarized Hager Group representatives, including the S/4HANA program manager and employees from the relevant business areas, with the numerous testing features available within SAP Solution Manager.
Afterwards, solution documentation, test management and defect management concepts were developed jointly. SolMan was then customized to map Hager Group's test strategy in an optimum manner.
Training sessions were held specifically to prepare users from the relevant business areas for testing activities with SAP Solution Manager. The scalability of the solution made it possible to easily have up to 700 testers in the testing phase simultaneously.

What Were the Benefits of Using SAP Solution Manager?

Thanks to SAP Solution Manager's testing features, which were customized to the needs of Hager Group, it was possible to optimally plan, manage, and monitor all phases of the various test processes. This resulted in significant benefits as follows:

Accelerated project duration: Perfectly coordinated testing activities paved the way for conducting the planned test phases on time and to the best quality. Thanks to highly integrated solution documentation, test management and defect management in SolMan, the relevant test managers always had access to an up-to-date overview of the test processes, the rate of successful tests, and the number and processing status of test errors.
Cost savings: Early error detection and more efficient error tracking kept costly errors to an absolute minimum during migration to the SAP S/4HANA system. Moreover, test planning, test execution, and error tracking was possible in a single tool – SAP Solution Manager – without the use of complex interfaces. Both actions combined resulted in significant cost savings during the migration project.
Better use of resources: The central management and planning of test resources, as well as a workflow-driven test and defect process, resulted in better use of existing resources, thereby enabling Hager Group to make optimum use of its testing teams and conduct a large number of test cases in a very short space of time.

Highly Integrated Solution Documentation, Test Management and Defect Management in SAP Solution Manager Facilitates Up-to-Date Overviews of Project Success.

What Were Hager Group's Final Thoughts Upon Completion of the Project?

"Implementing SAP Solution Manager for both our test management and defect management absolutely proved to be the right decision for our company," concludes Christoph Keppner, Digital Applications Team Leader ERP at Hager Group, praising the good collaboration with XEPTUM: "Thanks to the vast experience and expertise of our consulting partner, we were able to establish an extremely viable and efficient testing process during the S/4HANA transformation."

SAP Solution Manager has therefore proven itself at Hager Group to be a critical component for maintaining control over testing activities – the major cost driver in the S/4HANA project. Owing to this success and the great acceptance of SAP Solution Manager among Hager Group employees, the electrical installation specialist also plans to use SAP Solution Manager as a strategically sustainable tool for further projects.

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