I want to share an observation that I’ve had while working with some of my customers. Whenever a business gets a new type of product, it often involves integrating a different component into their IT system. In the SAP integration world, there are a lot of new tools that you may want to add, which will need to be mixed in with your existing applications. Until recently, you have probably had only one ERP system, but now we’re starting to see a lot more systems — both cloud-based and integration tools, that need to be dealt with. And the question is, who is supposed to be maintaining these systems?
In my experience with customers, I’m not being called in because their in-house developers don’t have enough to do, I’m being hired because they have enough work already, and now the organizations are trying to figure out how to integrate new tools into their system while maintaining the current workload. Most of the time, there is a new tool that needs to be implemented, and people think that their developers should be able to continue doing what they’ve always done, plus magically deal with this new shiny object! But that’s not always how it works.
If you’ve been in this situation, and your organization has worked to implement new tools on top of the regular workload, please feel free to post about it in the comments.
Most of the time, organizations call in consultants to help figure out how to use a new tool, although it seems a bit strange to me that they would bring in someone from the outside to help, when it is the internal developers who know how the system works and who need to be able to maintain it.
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About five years ago, one of my clients had only one developer maintaining all their integration work; but today, they have a team of four or more developers working full time to maintain their system, keeping the tasks up to date, etc. There are always challenges with more complex tools and new needs from the business that need to be considered and integrated. For example, if you’re getting API Management from SAP, you might logically think this is integration work, and would be aligned with the Integration Department. However, API Management is a different tool with a different skillset and a different kind of expertise required to make it work right. Consequently, departments need to carefully consider how this new component will work with existing components, and who is best suited to do the development and integration work of the new tool. Careful planning is needed to understand how you can best tie all the pieces together.
I have to put in a plug here: my company, Figaf, has a product called the IRT which we have created for testing PI systems. It is a new tool built to work with tools you already have. IRT is used in testing to help you figure out where new tools will best fit in and work together with your existing systems, and hopefully save you time and effort.
So, if you’re considering buying a new tool, please take the time to consider whether you need more people involved than the normal integration team so that the tool can be integrated into your current system in the best way possible