Ethically speaking, development work in SAP should not be treated as a premium add-on during a first-time implementation.
If you are building a house and decide to move a switchboard or change a plumbing point while the walls are still open, you do not pay a surcharge for “advanced wiring services”. It is the same labour, in the same phase of work, carried out to make the house usable. SAP implementations are no different.
ABAP, CDS Views, BAdIs, BAPIs, OData services, PI or PO, CPI, Node.js, Fiori apps, UI5, Adobe Forms, JavaScript, CAP, Business Partner configuration. These are delivery skills. They are tools of the trade. They enable the system to function as intended. They are not, by themselves, business value.
Treating each of these as a separately billable premium capability, especially in a first time implementation, distorts incentives. It shifts focus away from designing good processes and towards maximising technical line items. Customers end up paying more, while users still struggle with systems that feel awkward, fragmented, or difficult to adopt.
The real job of a system integrator is not to showcase how many technologies they can deploy. It is to understand the business, design processes that actually reflect how work gets done, and configure the system so that users can perform their daily tasks with confidence and minimal friction.
Most business users do not care what is standard and what is custom. Nor should they have to. They care whether the system works. Whether it supports decision making. Whether it is adopted without constant workarounds. Whether month end closes on time. Whether planners trust the numbers they see.
Development is necessary. Good development is essential. But charging for it as if it were optional luxury during a first implementation misses the point of enterprise software entirely.
At Lydian, we believe SAP projects should be priced and delivered around business outcomes, not technical artefacts. If you want to talk about structuring implementations around value instead of line item inflation, you can start that conversation at lydiangbs.com.
