Lesson 1 of 6
Why SAP needs a permanent testing capability
10 min
Listen to this lesson
The overview course Designing a Test Center of Excellence for SAP (sap-tst-401) made the argument in principle: SAP change never stops, and rebuilding a test team for every release is expensive. This course turns that argument into a document a CFO will sign. The first step is to show the demand: how much change is coming, how much testing it needs, and what that testing costs when nobody owns it.
A business case for a testing center of excellence (TCoE) is not a request for testers. It is a proposal to change how the company pays for quality: less money spent on emergency staffing, rework and production failures, more on prevention and on assets that are reused every release. Finance will judge it like any other investment: what does it cost, what does it return, how sure are you, and what happens if you are wrong.
Start with a demand forecast, not a team design
The most persuasive exhibit in a TCoE case is a twelve-month forecast of change that will need testing, built from sources finance already trusts. Each line names its source, its volume and a test-effort estimate from your own history. If you cannot forecast demand, you cannot size a team, and the sponsor will rightly ask why a permanent capability is needed for work nobody can predict.
| Demand source | Where the number comes from | Contoso forecast (12 months) |
|---|---|---|
| SAP release events | SAP release and maintenance schedules; the RISE upgrade plan | 2 feature pack stack updates for SAP S/4HANA 2025 |
| SAP Notes and security patches | SAP Security Patch Day (monthly) and legal-change notes | About 12 targeted patch checks |
| Enhancements and fixes | The demand backlog and change records | About 120 enhancement requests |
| Organizational change | Strategy and M&A plans | Wave 2: company code 1910 Monterrey |
| Platform change | SAP maintenance calendars | Solution Manager 7.2 mainstream maintenance ends in 2027; ECC test assets retire |
| Connected systems | Interface owners and SaaS vendors | Integration Suite moves after hypercare; carrier and bank changes |
A demand forecast built from sources finance already trusts. Volumes are Contoso's plan figures or illustrative.
Where ad hoc testing leaks money
Ad hoc testing does not look expensive on any single invoice. The cost hides in five places, and the baseline in the next lesson has to find each of them:
- Mobilization. Every release starts by finding testers, granting roles in CMQ, re-learning the process and rewriting stale test cases. At Contoso this was about 300 hours per release event before a single test ran.
- Premium capacity. Short-notice partner testers cost more per hour than planned call-off capacity, and they arrive without Contoso process knowledge.
- Key-user overload. Business testers pulled in during close or peak season test slowly, make mistakes and resent the work. Their time has a cost even when no invoice shows it.
- Rework. Defects found late are fixed under pressure, retested several times and sometimes transported twice.
- Escaped defects. The expensive tail: credit memos, re-billing, expedited freight and customer calls when an order-to-cash change goes wrong in CMP.
The SAP-specific reasons it is permanent
Three facts make the case stronger for SAP than for most software. First, under RISE with SAP the provider runs the technical upgrade, but planning, preparation and testing stay with the customer or its partner, so the testing load never transfers to SAP. Second, the release rhythm is fixed: SAP S/4HANA Private Edition delivers a new base release every two years with feature pack stacks in between, and Public Edition upgrades twice a year on SAP's schedule. Third, Contoso's legacy test assets live in SAP Solution Manager 7.2, whose mainstream maintenance ends at the end of 2027. An optional extension to 2030 exists only for customers who buy extended maintenance for SAP Business Suite 7, and it covers a reduced scope (test suite and change control among the functions kept), so it is a bridge for ECC estates, not a plan for a converted landscape. Someone has to decide which assets move to SAP Cloud ALM and which retire, and that decision needs an owner who will still be there next year.
What the case must decide
| Decision | Owner | Evidence the case must provide |
|---|---|---|
| Do we fund a permanent capability? | CIO and CFO | Demand forecast, cost of quality baseline, benefit range |
| How big is the core? | CIO with the TCoE lead | Hours of never-ending work versus peak work |
| How is it funded? | CFO | Funding model and how it shapes behavior |
| What may it decide? | Quality council | Charter: mandate, decision rights, exclusions |
| How do we know it works? | Sponsor | Success measures with baselines and targets |
What would you do?
Three months after hypercare, the CIO suggests disbanding the program test team and "hiring a partner team for each release, the way we did on ECC." Grace asks Priya for a recommendation before the next steering meeting. What should Priya bring?
- A TCoE business case changes how the company pays for quality; it is not a request for testers.
- Lead with a twelve-month demand forecast from sources finance trusts, converted to hours from your own history.
- Ad hoc testing leaks money through mobilization, premium capacity, key-user overload, rework and escaped defects.
- RISE leaves testing with the customer, SAP releases recur on a schedule, and Solution Manager 7.2 assets need a permanent owner.
Check your understanding · not graded
Lesson check
1. What should be the first exhibit in a TCoE business case?
2. Under RISE with SAP, who is responsible for testing after a technical upgrade?
3. Which cost of ad hoc testing is least likely to appear on any invoice?
4. Why does the end of mainstream maintenance for Solution Manager 7.2 strengthen the case?