Overview of Support Services

  As a leading SAP Services provider, SAP Support Services at EPC Solutions & Partners is distributed across all verticals Support and Maintenance Services from Annual Maintenance Contract to Basis Administration support.

SAP Support Portfolio:
EPC Solutions & Partner's SAP Support Portfolio includes,

• Annual Maintenance Contract (AMC),
• Functional and Technical Support, and
• Basis Administration.

these services can be availed by the below given Work Models.

Support Model:

• On-Site: A complete team of Consultants from Functional to Technical and Basis will work from customer ERP/ Application maintenance Office to ensure that day-to-day Business Processes are executed smoothly using implemented SAP Systems. A basic Service Level Agreement (SLA) will be in place to adhere Support Desk operation and Business functioning without any system/ application issues.
• Off-Shore: A team of Consultants from Functional to Technical and Basis will work from EPC Solutions & Partners Office and assist customer to run their day-to-day Business Operations effectively. A basic SLA will be in place to adhere Support Desk operation and Business functioning without any system/ application issues.
• Ticket Based: Basically it is a ‘Support on Demand’ model. Whenever there is a need for a Support, a team of Consultants specific to the Module/ Area will work towards rectifications as per the Agreed SLA. Most of the time its executed from Off-Shore and Consultants will only be available on-site on critical needs like go-live/ escalations.

 

Technical Support Services

EPC Solutions & Partners have been offering flexible support models to its customer since 2007. This service offering is for the customer who wants to take responsibility and execute Support/ Project on their own using EPC Solutions & Partners Consultants. In this case, EPC Solutions & Partners will not take responsibility of Project Management.

As per the requirement of customers, required skilled Consultants will be deployed using which customer will execute the support. As we are purely focused on SAP Technologies we can provide Consultants on the following stream:

• Senior Functional Consultants
  • Finance & Controlling/ Lead
  • Logistics/ Lead
  • HCM/ Lead
  • CRM/ Lead
• Functional Consultants
  • Finance
  • Controlling
  • Material Management/ CIN
  • Sales and Distribution/ CIN
  • Production Planning
  • Plant Maintenance
  • Quality Management
  • Project Systems
  • Warehouse Management
  • Human Resources
  • ESS/ MSS
  • CRM Sales
  • CRM Services
  • SRM Consultant
• Senior Technical Consultants
  • Solution Architecture/ Technical Specification
  • Lead Consultant
• Technical Consultants
  • ABAP Technical
  • Webdynpro ABAP/ Adobe
  • HR ABAP
  • CRM ABAP
  • Workflow Consultant
  • SAP UI5 Developer
  • BI Consultant
  • BO Consultant
  • EP Consultant
  • PI Consultant
• Senior Basis Administrator
  • Security Architecture
  • Upgrade Lead
  • System Integration
• Basis Administrator
  • Transport Management
  • User Support/ Patch Update
  • Backup and Restore

 

Annual Maintenance Support (AMS)

The basic AMS Model includes On-Site, Off-Shore and On-Demand in Industry practices. EPC Solutions & Partners provides all three Support Models in domestic and aboard.

EPC Solutions & Partners AMS is described with the following sections as below:

• Support Work Model,
• Support Desk Tool,
• Roles and Responsibilities of EPC SOLUTIONS & PARTNERS,
• Scope of the Support Engagement,
• Benefits of Outsourcing Support to EPC SOLUTIONS & PARTNERS, and
• EPC SOLUTIONS & PARTNERS AMS Case Study,

EPC Solutions & Partners would like to provide very flexible and effective Support Model for Customers.
Support Work Model:

EPC Solutions & Partners will allocate a SAP Project Team, specifically for Individual/ multiple Customer(s), project team which will consist of

• Project manager
• Functional Lead
• Technical Lead
• Basis Lead and
• Consultants

The whole project is being managed & monitored by a Project Manager to ensure customer gets the Support in such a way that the Business is not affected, it improves the Business Operation’s and increases the efficiency of IT usage.

Functional and Technical leads assesses the support tickets/ issues and provides required solutions to consultants/ users for all complex issues where consultant couldn’t find suitable solution.

Leads to interact with users/ managers for requirement understanding andvisit Customer for meetings whenever required.

Leads to audit all the completed work as a Quality Inspection before releasing the work to customer, and ensure documentations for the configuration/ developments changes as follows:

• Functional/ Configuration document
• Technical document
• Test Case document
• UAT document (provided by end user) and
• Risk/ Impact assessment document

Without the above documents, SAP Transports will not be approved to Production.

ITEANZ is following the policy of maintaining Documentations with all its clients as a Practice and ISO recommendations. Documentations are necessary for System Trace and KT purposes.

Support Desk Tool:

In order to handle the support very efficiently, EPC Solutions &Partners, uses Support Desk Tool to record issues as “Support Message”.

Each Support Messages are Categories as below:

• User Access & Authorization
• Configuration Changes
• Problem (System & Application Error)
• Change Request- FRICEW
• New Development

and each Support Messages are Prioritized as with a Priority as below:

• Very High,
• High,
• Medium, and
• Low

Users can report their Issues/ Requirement via Support Desk Tool, which will be linked to all SAP Systems, wherein Support Messages can be created with a unique number, system will alert “Support Desk” immediately by email notification.

“Support Desk” will analyze the message and assign it to an appropriate Consultant by “Module Wise” to solve the issue. Support Message’s “Status” is updated according to the processing stages, ITEANZ Support Message status are:

• New
• In Process
• Solution Proposed
• Customer Action
• Completed

Users are provided with an option “Feedback” to comment/ rate on the quality of the Support Message resolution, Satisfaction level of the Solution provided and User friendly interaction by Consultants etc.

Each Support Messages are attended by Consultants as per the agreed “Service Level Agreement (SLA)” timelines, SLA timelines are strategically defined as a “SLA Matrix”, in combination with Category and Priority (Category VS Priority).

The support Desk tool could be customer’s existing IT Support Tool or EPC Solutions & Partners Support Desk Tool powered by SAP Solution Manager.

ITEANZ recommends Customer to Implement “Support Desk” using SAP Solution manager as Solution Manager Server is installed and running.

SAP Solution Manager can be used for multiple purposes such as Project Management, Support Desk, Early Watch Alert, Maintain SAP Landscape, and Business Process Monitoring etc.

Roles and Responsibilities:

1. Complete responsibility of your SAP IT Infrastructure (Software),

2. Provide Resolution to all Support Messages as per agreed SLA timelines,

3. Provide solutions to reported issues under category:

• User Access & Authorization
• Configuration Changes
• Problem (System & Application Error)
• Change Request- FRICEW
• New Development (major development will attracts separate cost)

4. SAP Systems Maintenance – Software Updates

5. SAP Applications Maintenance – Software Updates & Performance

6. Increase SAP Systems Usage – Recommendations & Process re-engineering

7. SAP Training – Periodic Training & Knowledge sharing for End users & New joiners

8. Quality Audit for each SAP Transports, and ensure Functional, Technical, Test Case, User Acceptance Test (UAT) Documentations for System Trace and Knowledge Management (Necessary for System Analysis & KT),

9. Weekly Support Review,

10. Monthly Reports on Support Functions for Workload and Performance monitoring, Graphical report by Module and Status wise to assess workload and balance work plan, and

11. SAP Enterprise Support coordination (OSS).

Support Benefits:

• Easy Access to SAP Resources
  • Skilled SAP Consultants and necessary SAP Resources are easily accessible to Customer from ITEANZ.
  • Access to ITEANZ Solution Database for all common issues
  • Up to date SAP Software Updates & News available to Customer via ITEANZ.
• SAP Systems Utilization & Process Improvement
  • Utilization of your SAP Systems are improved by efficient Support & Flexible adaptation of changes/ enhancements for Process Improvement.
  • As a VENDOR and Organizational Responsibility, we are accountable to ensure all Support Issues are resolved as per the agreed SLA timelines for uninterrupted Business Operations.
  • Recommendation to Process Improvements and Implement Solutions for “New developments” messages (Major development will attract separate Cost)
• BetterRoI on SAP Investment
  • SAP Systems and Applications are regularly maintained and new functionalities are recommended without much additional cost to increase your utilization from initial SAP investments.
• Complimentary Solutions
  • EPC SOLUTIONS & PARTNERS will implement one Complimentary Solution for each Quarter: To be filled according to customer’s business nature.
• ITEANZ will implement these Solutions as a complete package @ No additional Cost, one at each Quarter.


• Cost Reduction
  • It’s a proven fact that any Customer can reduce their Operational Cost by outsourcing the Support Functions to third party vendor instead of handling it on their own.
  • No separate allowances to be paid for third party Consultants & No reimbursement.
  • Your SAP Team’s wages will get increased by every year as part of appraisal and revisions, which leads to increase in IT budget every year.
  • Reduction of Operational Cost of the SAP Support Team’s logistics such as laptops, telephone, internet and work station etc
• Reduced IT Operational Risk
  • SAP Systems are regularly maintained and operational issues are solved by EPC SOLUTIONS & PARTNERS

 

Basis Administration Support Service

EPC Solutions & Partners offers dedicated Basis Administration as a separate service for the customers those who have internal SAP Team who are able to handle Functional and Technical requirements.

As we know that Administration of the SAP Servers needs exposures and best practises to ensure availability of the Servers without any interruptions, EPC Solutions & Partners offers this particular service to support customer on all the Basis related activities such as:

• Installation
• Systems Monitoring
• Load Balancing
• Transports Management
• Authorization/ Security Management
• Users & Access Support
• Backup and Restore
• Patch Updation
• Project Support
• DR Setup
• DR Recovery
• Activation ICM/ Webdynpro
• Single Sign-On (SSO)
• Secured Socket Layer (SSL)
• SAP Cryptographic Library Installation
• Hardware Migration
• SAP User License Audit

EPC Solutions & Partners runs its internal Business Operations using SAP Business Suites which offers flexible infrastructure to build/ develop competencies on Baais Administration.
 

Application Maintenance Support Services

EPC Solutions & Partners offers maintenance of SAP Applications as a Service for those customers who requires complex applications to be managed by vendor/ services provider like EPC Solutions & Partners rather than outsourcing the complete SAP Support activities.

Application Maintenance service that offers complete ownership/ responsibility of the said Application and availability of the application/ process to Business without any interruptions. This service includes the following Facilities and Responsibilities:

• Application Hosting
• Application Hosting within SAP
• Application Monitoring
• User Support for the Application
• Change Request Management
• Patches/ Upgrade
• Application integration
• Process re-Engineering

A dedicated team of Consultant will be deployed to carry out the task and support based on the Business Agreement. This service can be offered from On-Site or Off-shore depending on the requirement/ needs.