Why your company needs a SAP Basis team?

Tomasz Ostrowski, Team Leader SAP Basis

5th January 2018
Trends in SAP
2 min

SAP Basis is a subject rarely brought up in the context of SAP services.

SAP Basis is a subject rarely brought up in the context of SAP services.
Quite often, its significance to the overall architecture of a system is neglected or forgotten. Education about it proves to be particularly important for companies still undecided about whether to implement an SAP system.

From this article you will learn:

Who is SAP Basis?
Why our company needs an SAP Basis Department?
Why your company needs an SAP Basis Administrator?
What trends will be present in SAP Basis in the coming years?

Who is SAP Basis?

The job of an SAP Basis Administrator is the management and administration of SAP systems.
In practice, this means being responsible for system runtime environment, managing cooperation between systems, scheduling and deploying system updates, responding to users’ and investigating performance problems (concerning the network, databases or operating systems), backups and the architecture. The SAP Basis Administrator also remains up to date regarding market trends, proposing solutions consistent with the modern business and operational environment.

The competencies and responsibilities of an SAP Basis Administrator include the following:

Installation, migration, updating, optimization, monitoring, and resolution of current problems concerning SAP systems,
Creation and implementation of the environment following best SAP practices,
Management of processes and transports in SAP,
User management,
High Availability/Disaster Recovery,
Database management,
OS,
Maintenance of the network infrastructure,
Migration and support of cloud-based solutions.

Why our company needed an SAP BASIS Department? Our Case

At the onset of our activity, systems were installed and maintained at our company by the functional consultants of individual systems. The CRM consultant was in charge of the SAP CRM system; the SRM consultant was in charge of the SAP SRM, etc.

Over time, Basis-related tasks became so complicated and time-consuming, that the consultants were overwhelmed. Therefore, a person who would deal exclusively with Basis problems became necessary.

Furthermore, the person in charge of SAP Basis needed more than just knowledge directly related to SAP systems; this employee also required to have an extensive set of skills associated with operating systems (Windows and Linux), databases (e.g., Oracle, MaxDB, HANA Database) and network services.

At a later stage, our company’s development and constant expansion of our activities made us establish an entire SAP Basis team. Ultimately, that should be the final state at every organization that maintains SAP systems.

Key information in one place

SAP Basis in a nutshell

SAP Basis – Trends for the Coming Years

The digitization of enterprises and emerging new technologies will force administrators to adapt to ever-changing conditions. Presently, the following trends, which will be progressively more noticeable on the market, can be observed:

SAP system database migration to HANA Database,
Migration and updating of the SAP application to HANA Platform (ERP to S4/HANA, BW to BW4/HANA),
Migration to cloud platforms.

Why You Need SAP Basis Administrators at your Company?

A dedicated SAP Basis team ensures 24/7 support of company systems. The primary advantage resulting from this, is that team members are familiar with the company’s infrastructure, as they work with it every day. This enables swifter resolution of specific problems.

Furthermore, when compared to an inexperienced and perhaps, poorly qualified person, an SAP Basis team is more capable of implementing new system functionalities, without jeopardizing the security, stability or operational quality. This is due to its members’ project experience, training courses, and certifications.

See what services we can provide to your company: