The 2025 SAP S/4HANA is shaping up to be extremely competitive—we are seeing large numbers of RFPs from Federal and state agencies, utilities, and the commercial enterprise. All are planning for work to get underway in early 2025. What does the mean for your organization in terms of being able to access the expertise when and where you need it, and within your budget? There are a finite number of SAP consulting resources both domestically and offshore, and everyone will be pulling from the same pool.
In a steadier business climate, you can make informed decisions about timelines, talent availability, and cost. But as the market heats up, resources become constrained, and people move to new opportunities, those assumptions become higher risk. Based on what we saw in 2021 and 2022, we can anticipate how things may play out in 2025, but using lessons learned, we can be also better prepared.
The following is what to expect—and how to plan.
Every systems integrator (SI) I’ve spoken with sees where the market is headed and is building bench strength. Still, their resources are not unlimited. They will eventually reach a point at which they cannot take on any more work without risking quality and reputation—and no SI will do that. More likely, when they reach capacity, they will stop taking on new business and/or begin competing with other SIs for resources. In the former case, if you haven’t secured an SI for your program, your first choice may not be available. In the latter, a word of caution: do not assume the senior talent the SI brings to the table will stay throughout your program. Other SIs will be offering incentives to win them over.
In addition, SIs have established relationships with offshore vendors and typically leverage them for a substantial portion of their implementation resource needs. As the offshore vendors become more constrained, delivery slows, and timelines get off track. To meet deadlines, that work will need to be done domestically. But expertise will be limited, and rates will be significantly higher than budgeted. If the burden then falls to your more senior team members to close the gap, they may burn out and seek other opportunities.
The lesson here is that although systems integrators make staffing commitments in good faith, in a competitive market, even they will be challenged to get and retain quality resources. That may have an impact on your budget and timelines.
The challenge with offshore is twofold. First, offshore does not mean unlimited. There is a finite pool of talent to pull from there, too. Second, offshore partnerships can be challenging to manage in even the best of circumstances. The most experienced and reliable vendors will be stretched to capacity and unable to take on more work, so you may have to pay higher rates to secure less than optimal resources. If they don’t deliver as anticipated, it puts your program at risk. If you have a pre-existing relationship with a trusted offshore provider, my recommendation is to line up those resources now and put a contingency plan in place.
Many organizations will lean into the strengths and expertise of their own team during a transformation. They understand your practices and systems and you know you can count on them. Keep in mind that your working environment matters, especially if you are asking your team to compensate for SI- and offshore-related staffing shortfalls. In a competitive market, savvy recruiters will reach out to your employees and offer them financial incentives to move. Make it worth their while to stay.
Another potential pitfall here is overestimating how much they will be able to contribute to the new program while continuing to handle business as usual. At Baer, we recommend a mirrored capacity approach, which entails bringing in contingent labor to support your team and learn your systems before the launch of the transformation.
When your SI, offshore resources, and your own team are at capacity, most organizations will turn to human resources for help. And in turn, they will reach out to the IT staffing companies your procurement team has pre-approved. But traditional IT staffing companies aren’t tapped into the nuances of the SAP contingent labor ecosystem. They typically cast too wide a net—keyword match—because they don’t understand the technology or specialized expertise needed. In a competitive market, people are on the move, looking for better pay and more interesting work, so this approach yields a slew of CVs, but none of them are a strong fit. You end up wasting valuable time sorting through hundreds of resumes and holding fruitless rounds of interviews. It quickly becomes an exercise in futility.
Despite everyone doing their absolute best to close the contingent labor gap in 2021 and 22, chaos reigned. Talent left for greener pastures. Timelines suffered. Costs soared. There is no surefire solution—everyone can expect some disruption, but there are things you can do to minimize it and gain a competitive edge. Lock in your vendor partnerships now, plan for increased budgets and delays, offer flexible, hybrid terms where you can, put a mirrored capacity team in place. But the biggest edge is going to come from partnering with an enterprise performance partner like Baer that understands the market trends, the technology, and has access to a deep bench of proven talent.
At Baer, our precision approach is the path to minimizing disruption and gaining an edge in a hyper-accelerated SAP S/4HANA contingent labor market.
Unlike typical technology staffing companies, Baer is a true enterprise performance partner. We have a deep understanding of the scope of enterprise digital transformation and the highly specialized skillsets you will need at different stages of the process.
To learn more about how Baer can make a positive impact on your enterprise transformation, contact us at capabilities@baer.com.