When should SAP Country Versions be activated ?

Question

Should SAP Country Versions be activated within the Global SAP Template prior to the wave roll outs to avoid retrofitting during the waves?
Situation:
We have completed the global SAP template and are ready to roll it out to 50 countries. Wave 1 (of 4) implementation project has just started but does not require any of the complex Country Versions. Those are only needed in waves 2 and 3.
Decision point:
Should all Country Versions (that will eventually be needed) be activated prior to the 1st go-live or only once the specific country will go live?
Concern:
It can be expected that some Country Versions, such as India, Brazil or Japan, that include highly complex functionality, may impact the existing Global Template. For example, certain transactions (e.g. Material Master, Vendor or Customer maintenance, Goods Movements) will require additional data elements once the Country Version has been activated. Retrofitting may therefore be necessary for entities that have gone live in previous waves. Global Template rework (e.g. BPP, training material) may be necessary.

Answer 1

Hello,
first of all we have to clarify the meaning of "activating a country" within a global system.
In SAP ERP, there is no "switch", which can be activated and as a result the country is active and fully implemented.
In contrast, there is the so called country installation program (see SAP note 63805 point 3) to implement SOME template settings -
however these are proposals only and will not serve as a fully activated country version.
Therefore in order to implement a country, customers have to do much more than using the country installation program.
Hence the effort to do this in a proper way is rather high (especially for the complex countries).
In theory you are right - it would be the best for the template approach to have all the countries implemented and as a result to have a
rather stable global template. However this is usually NOT reality in customer projects. In most cases, it does not make sense to invest
into the country implementation several years in advance. As an example, testing of the implementation is an important aspect -
this would be needed twice - as there are legal changes and these have to be implemented in the countries.
Summing it up, it is rather best business practice to adapt the global template (and take the risk of changing functionality for countries
which are already live) while implementing additional countries rather than do everything in one shot.
There might be a few exceptions to this rule for very special requirements:
Example: India and Brazil have requirements which touch the logistics area (in Brazil: (electronic) Nota fiscal). Here it could make sense to consider these requirements in the initial phase of the template design.
Best regards,
Nils Buerckel
Globalization Services
SAP AG