Dealing with technological diversity in SAP security

23 May 2019

PwC’s Managed Services SAP Authorizations

Companies are increasingly faced with the challenge of new SAP solutions being introduced, which at the same time offer new technologies in the area of user management and access protection. As a result, companies are under pressure to promptly build up internal resources in order to be able to use the applications securely and to their full extent.

Challenges in SAP security and authorisations

Examples of such new applications include SAP SuccessFactors in Human Resources and SAP Ariba in the area of Procurement. Both applications are cloud solutions from SAP, which – compared with SAP ERP, however – have fundamentally different SAP user and access management.

At the same time, significant efforts are being made to consolidate existing solutions on the S/4 HANA platform, which is also new. Integration in new technologies leads to considerable challenges with regard to IT security and access management.

In order to overcome these challenges and meet the market requirements for flexible and competent resources, PwC has developed Managed Services to process SAP authorisations efficiently and professionally. Our Managed Services for SAP user and access management include an experienced delivery centre in Switzerland and cover all Swiss languages (German, French and Italian) as well as English. Managed Services from PwC have become established over the years and are used by numerous customers in Switzerland. This way, PwC can also support customers with customer-specific SAP projects where required, by providing the appropriate know-how transfer and competent resources.

Regardless of the extent of PwC’s involvement, customers always retain control and responsibility to ensure they are able to manage the topic without further involvement from PwC. PwC supports this scenario through corresponding documentation and know-how transfer.

PwC is also researching new ways of managing and standardising authorisation management, e.g. through the use of robotic process automation to increase efficiency and thus reduce the workload for SAP security resources resulting from non-value-adding activities.

Peter Wälchli, Head of SAP and Reporting Solutions at BKW: 

“We have been using S/4 HANA since January 2017 and are currently on release 1709. PwC supported the implementation and worked closely with our SAP compliance managers. After go-live, we decided to conclude a call-off contract with PwC. This means that we receive support when specific issues arise relating to SAP compliance, in particular for some of the new technologies like SAP HANA and SAP Fiori. SAP compliance in our IT landscape is technologically complex. The Managed Services offered by PwC help us ensure that we can implement and keep track of our compliance requirements across all technologies. The PwC team contributes its extensive expertise both on and off site. We really value their customer focus. The delivery centre in Switzerland, which provides 2nd-level support in all languages, helps us to communicate with our internal stakeholders at all times. We are delighted to have chosen the full service offering from PwC.”

 

PwC Managed Services for SAP authorisations

2nd Level Support and 3rd Level Support

As part of this Managed Service, PwC offers 2nd- and 3rd-level support for user and access management in SAP. The service enables complete outsourcing of user and access management and can also be used to complement in-house resources with regard to skills and/or capacity.

On-Demand Project Support

Our on-demand project support provides you with access to a pool of SAP compliance experts who can offer you the best advice on your SAP projects. Access to our experts is on a project-specific basis and is billed according to the pay-per-use principle.

SAP Compliance Management

The growing influence of IT systems on business processes and stricter regulations are leading to increasingly stricter auditing practices and security requirements. SAP Compliance Management ensures that your SAP system settings and user and access rights are consistent with the current best practices and requirements. For this purpose, PwC employs your solutions such as SAP GCR Access Control or uses its own solutions to carry out regular compliance checks.

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