SAP

Regulatory and Legal changes are driven by some fundamental and forceful compliance mandates by Government authorities and Industry bodies.  Once they come into effect and an end date is set companies affected would scramble for quick fix solutions and wish to avoid non-compliance status to safeguard their interests.  For an organization which is running on ERP where certain changes are to be implemented for compliance purpose, it is a major task with urgency to implement changes in Production environment.  In such scenarios if there are Preconfigured point solutions available it will greatly reduce time and effort taken to incorporate changes and ease pressure and avoiding burning midnight oil.    Some of the example scenarios that would fit into this category of solutions which I came across are listed below:
1) Health care providers are to procure equipment and drugs through Insurance providers: This is a latest regulation that is being enforced to minimize the fraudulent claims and also reduce purchasing cost of high cost equipment (ex:Stents, implants) and high cost life saving drugs.

2) Automobile manufacturers are to deduct vehicle retirement fee (scrapping cost) upfront from customers at the time of purchase: This is to avoid Government expenditure on scrapping abandoned vehicles once the retirement date is crossed. Instead as the retirement fee is collected upfront and accumulated into a pool, it can be used to finance such scrapping activities.

In such kind of scenarios an up and running ERP system may have to implement changes in multiple areas such as creation of new master data, setting configuration, new custom developments, interfaces, training etc., However as these are mostly standardized processes being enforced there could be lot of commonality in the way they can be implemented in standard ERPs across various customers impacted.  While we see ERP vendors also coming up with enhancement packs to cater to these requirements, they are slightly delayed and may not give comprehensive accelerated solution in all areas mentioned above.    Hence this gives a good opportunity for coming up with a Preconfigured point solutions for accelerated compliance to regulations.

We can follow typical life cycle of Analysis, Design & Build Solution, Testing, and Go-To-Market & Deploy to build these point solutions.  Some of the key tenets to be followed are outlined below.
Analysis: Understand legal change, Get expert opinion from Industry SMEs, Look for multiple feasibility options and solutions, Ensure solution is generic and one size fit all.
Design & Build:  Make extremely user friendly, Easy to Deploy,  Avoid hard coding, Provide multiple solution extension options, Give enough room for aligning with customer specific standards and naming conventions, Provide ready to deploy code, configuration sets, customizable code with integration compatibility with other systems
Testing: Test for extensibility, Provide reusable Test cases, Testing scripts and user training documents
Go-To-Market & Deploy: Evangelize through Industry Expert forums, Get  these legal compliance solutions certified and branded, Commercial models based on effort saving, Time value associated with Business value derived and Deploy at customer locations and transition to existing support teams

I wish to conclude with following key messages:
1) Integrated ERP Service providers need to keep looking for potential legal and mandatory changes coming into market and evaluate the same for comign up with Preconfigured point solutions for accelerated   compliance to regulations.
2) It will help Integrated ERP Service providers in scaling up the value chain.  Also they are well positioned to do so given their association with customers in various industry verticals through Implementation/Rollout/Support services.