Reducing disruption during essential change

Context and role

A mandatory annual SAP update required a complete shutdown. Previous weekend deployments had delayed reporting until service resumed, but newer products needed SAP for live checks. An extended interruption could now prevent purchases.

As Retail’s senior stakeholder, I worked with Finance and Commercial Trading to assess the exposure. The Retail Director accepted my recommendation to minimise disruption and authorised me to represent him on project calls. The formal technical project team retained responsibility for deployment.

Agreement across teams

I proposed moving suitable activity and code changes into the week, with the remaining shutdown concentrated overnight. This required agreement across teams whose uses of SAP and operational dependencies differed.

I explained the trading implications and proposed arrangements so representatives could assess them with their directors. Where agreement remained difficult, I escalated to the Retail Director. His discussions with other directors helped secure business-wide alignment.

Recovery and customer arrangements

The project team completed deployment successfully and on schedule across two weekends. SAP-dependent trading resumed approximately two hours after stores opened on each Saturday.

I confirmed that historical sales had been restated before stores resumed the affected trading activity. With Store Support, I agreed a money-off-first-bill offer for affected customers returning later that day or in the following days, using an approach the business had used previously.

Outcome

Helped replace a prolonged trading interruption with an agreed staggered deployment. My contribution was business-impact assessment, representation, escalation and recovery arrangements; the technical team delivered the systems change.