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SAP Support and Maintenance Center (CSM)

SAP Support and Maintenance Center (CSM)

The challenges faced by SAP customers today 

Accessing experts covering the entirety of SAP environments :

  • The SAP functional and technical scope is increasingly broad and complex.

  • Maintaining the required expertise in-house is challenging.

Ensuring service continuity :

Planned or unplanned absences impact the service provided to users.

Managing flexibility during workload peaks :

  • Increased workload during new projects (deployment of a new module, version upgrades…)

  • Decreased workload during activity downturns.

Reducing the costs of maintaining and evolving SAP solutions :

  • Economic cycles are erratic, short, and unpredictable.

  • On-site internal or external resources represent a recurring fixed cost, regardless of actual need.

  • Fine cost management is difficult (lack of monitoring and control tools).

Improving quality :

  • Are the implemented solutions optimal from both a business and SAP perspective?

  • Are corrections and enhancements documented, from user requirements to technical or functional implementation?

  • Are users well-supported daily?

  • Planned or unplanned absences impact the service provided to users.

Until recently, the operational models of outsourced Service Centers (or AMS) did not address these challenges, particularly due to a lack of contractual and operational flexibility.

Most existing Service Centers focus solely on reducing displayed rates, usually with a nearshore or offshore approach and teams mostly composed of junior profiles capable of providing only level 1 and 2 support.

To address these needs, Applium, an integrator dedicated to SAP solutions, has established a Support and Maintenance Center (CSM) that allows clients to benefit from a complete range of SAP service offerings billed on a consumption basis (by the hour) with no volume commitment.

Above all, Applium’s CSM clients can access a team of exclusively senior SAP profiles, with both business and solution expertise, capable of providing advice and executing complex enhancements, up to mini-projects.

In this approach, costs are optimized through greater operational efficiency.

  • Application Maintenance (AMS)

  • SAP Outsourcing (Operational Maintenance)

  • SAP Vendor Maintenance

  • SAP Hosting on Azure

  • SAP Hosting on OVHcloud

Service Offering :

Applium’s SAP Support and Maintenance Center (CSM) is dedicated to providing :

  • SAP or database version migrations

  • Implementation of a new module (QM, WM, PS, CO-PA, CO-PC, etc.)

  • Deployment of SAP in a subsidiary or creation of a new company

  • Implementation of a mobility solution (Fiori or others)

  • Implementation of an invoice dematerialization solution

  • Revamping the technical infrastructure

  • …

The flexibility of the proposed model and the expertise of Applium consultants allow for significant enhancements to be made in project mode within the framework of a simple “evolutionary” AMS ticket. Applium’s CSM regularly handles enhancements spanning several dozen days, and sometimes beyond a hundred days, such as :

Innovation

The expertise of SAP consultants is a baseline assumption and is no longer sufficient to differentiate the various players in SAP expertise as demanded by the market.

Our AMS approach is particularly innovative and unique within the SAP ecosystem. Our offering was designed with three key characteristics in mind: freedom, flexibility, and simplicity.

The innovative nature of our offering is characterized by two main aspects :

  • Contract : no commitment from clients to consume a minimum volume, no fixed costs, no upfront billing (only tickets closed by clients are billed).

  • Portal : an innovative and high-performance AMS portal offering numerous features to streamline and automate various tasks and management processes. 

More information on the support portal

“Expert” Profiles

Beyond processes and tools, the level and experience of CSM contributors are fundamental to ensuring the quality of services provided to our clients daily. Here is what we mean by SAP “Expert” :

Functional Consultants

  • Business expertise (accounting, procurement, sales, logistics…): ability to communicate effectively with business users, understand their needs, and provide advice.
  • SAP expertise: ability to propose the best SAP standard solutions in response to business needs.
  • Expertise across multiple SAP modules/solutions.

Technical Consultants

  • Functional understanding and technological awareness.
  • Global SAP Netweaver expertise: ABAP + Object-Oriented ABAP + new SAP technologies (Adobe, Webdynpro, Portal, Workflow…).
  • Adherence to SAP recommendations regarding optimization and Applium-defined naming and coding standards, potentially adapted to each client.
  • Development of optimized programs that are easy to maintain and evolve.

  • Contract without any client commitment.

  • Billing per ticket and per hour, only when the client closes the ticket.

  • On-site interventions when necessary (e.g., scoping workshops for an enhancement).

  • Corrections and enhancements that can be subject to fixed-price agreements.

  • Capability to execute complex enhancements in project mode, with dedicated teams.

  • Strong commitments to responsiveness and quality (SLA), particularly for corrections.

  • Real-time activity and budget monitoring via the proposed portal.

  • …

Summary of the advantages and differentiators of Applium’s CSM

In summary, the advantages of our AMS are as follows :

Service offerings related to the SAP Support and Maintenance Center (CSM) :

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