How Can I Start a Career as an SAP Consultant?
When you begin to think about your SAP career, you can start by deciding whether you want to be an SAP functional consultant or an SAP technical consultant. Of course, there can be some crossover between these two, and ideally, you will have a mix of both, but careers in SAP are about focus. Your focus is dictated by two things: the overall background of your experience, and where you want to be headed from here.Those SAP professionals with a functional background in areas such as finance, supply chain management, or customer relationship management, will likely focus on the functional side of SAP in their consulting careers. On the technical side, there is a distinction to be made between two main career paths: SAP developer and SAP Netweaver Engineer, or what has historically been called the "SAP Basis consultant." Basis incorporates hands-on SAP systems administration functions.
Often, some DBA know-how is included in the Basis skill set,
though on larger SAP installations, the SAP DBA is frequently a separate role. The same goes for
SAP Security. While there is such a thing as an SAP Security consultant, security is often a skill
set under the SAP Basis umbrella.
Business Intelligence (BI) is starting to impact all SAP roles and all SAP professionals should consider developing proficiency in this area.
With those distinctions in mind, how do you become an SAP consultant in today's marketplace? It's helpful to think of SAP consulting as a combination of two important skill sets: SAP implementation experience and enterprise consulting experience. It's not always easy to acquire both these skills at the same time. In the 1990s, you could sometimes get trained as a consultant while getting your first SAP exposure at the same time, and all you needed was a certification. That's not the case anymore.
To become an SAP consultant in today's market, you almost always need to have SAP implementation experience under your belt already. That means you've done a 2-4 year stint working in a hands-on capacity on a full-blown SAP project. Typically, this experience is acquired while being a full-time employee. On the functional side, product configuration skills are still important, as well as full life cycle experience throughout an implementation. On the Basis side, product installation and systems optimization is the key, and on the developer side, experience customizing SAP reports, making UI enhancements, and developing third party interfaces are examples of bread-and-butter skills. This type of experience, accumulated over years, forms the core of the SAP skill set.
Then there is the consulting side of the skill set. If you have experience consulting in other enterprise applications (Oracle, PeopleSoft, etc) and understand ERP implementation methodologies, you might be able to break into SAP from that side, bringing the consulting side of the skill set to the table. However, on the SAP side, you'd still be considered a "junior" consultant and there aren't nearly as many junior consulting roles as there once were. The consulting side of the skills profile is not to be underestimated. It usually takes years to become a highly effective consultant. Nothing takes the place of experience on multiple projects, where you master the art of helping users to define their business requirements, guiding them through the implementation of SAP that meets their requirements, and leaving them with knowledge successfully transferred. It is interesting to note that some SAP professionals are able to build these skills as full time employees, essentially functioning as internal consultants for their team.
What is the bottom line to becoming an SAP consultant?
If you have trouble landing an SAP consulting position, look to strengthen either your hands-on SAP skills or your overall consulting skills. Then try again. In this market, persistence pays. I rarely see examples of people who are determined to become SAP consultants who don't eventually break through. But sometimes you have to be creative about finding the right opportunity. Self-education options are numerous, and plenty of training and certification options can help you on your way. But they won't take the place of hands-on experience, so keep that in the forefront of your career goals at all times.
Content provided by Jon Reed. Jon is an independent SAP analyst and SAP Mentor who blogs, tweets, and podcasts on SAP market trends. He is the driving force behind JonERP.com, an interactive website that features Jon's SAP Career Blog and his podcasts for SAP professionals.
From 2002-2007, Jon served as the Managing Editor of ERPtips SAP Library.
Business Intelligence (BI) is starting to impact all SAP roles and all SAP professionals should consider developing proficiency in this area.
With those distinctions in mind, how do you become an SAP consultant in today's marketplace? It's helpful to think of SAP consulting as a combination of two important skill sets: SAP implementation experience and enterprise consulting experience. It's not always easy to acquire both these skills at the same time. In the 1990s, you could sometimes get trained as a consultant while getting your first SAP exposure at the same time, and all you needed was a certification. That's not the case anymore.
To become an SAP consultant in today's market, you almost always need to have SAP implementation experience under your belt already. That means you've done a 2-4 year stint working in a hands-on capacity on a full-blown SAP project. Typically, this experience is acquired while being a full-time employee. On the functional side, product configuration skills are still important, as well as full life cycle experience throughout an implementation. On the Basis side, product installation and systems optimization is the key, and on the developer side, experience customizing SAP reports, making UI enhancements, and developing third party interfaces are examples of bread-and-butter skills. This type of experience, accumulated over years, forms the core of the SAP skill set.
Then there is the consulting side of the skill set. If you have experience consulting in other enterprise applications (Oracle, PeopleSoft, etc) and understand ERP implementation methodologies, you might be able to break into SAP from that side, bringing the consulting side of the skill set to the table. However, on the SAP side, you'd still be considered a "junior" consultant and there aren't nearly as many junior consulting roles as there once were. The consulting side of the skills profile is not to be underestimated. It usually takes years to become a highly effective consultant. Nothing takes the place of experience on multiple projects, where you master the art of helping users to define their business requirements, guiding them through the implementation of SAP that meets their requirements, and leaving them with knowledge successfully transferred. It is interesting to note that some SAP professionals are able to build these skills as full time employees, essentially functioning as internal consultants for their team.
What is the bottom line to becoming an SAP consultant?
1. Obtain hands-on SAP implementation experience, preferably on multiple projects.
2. Gain experience with SAP implementation methodologies and solving customer problems.
3. Bring together SAP implementation and enterprise consulting skills into one skill set.
2. Gain experience with SAP implementation methodologies and solving customer problems.
3. Bring together SAP implementation and enterprise consulting skills into one skill set.
If you have trouble landing an SAP consulting position, look to strengthen either your hands-on SAP skills or your overall consulting skills. Then try again. In this market, persistence pays. I rarely see examples of people who are determined to become SAP consultants who don't eventually break through. But sometimes you have to be creative about finding the right opportunity. Self-education options are numerous, and plenty of training and certification options can help you on your way. But they won't take the place of hands-on experience, so keep that in the forefront of your career goals at all times.
Content provided by Jon Reed. Jon is an independent SAP analyst and SAP Mentor who blogs, tweets, and podcasts on SAP market trends. He is the driving force behind JonERP.com, an interactive website that features Jon's SAP Career Blog and his podcasts for SAP professionals.
From 2002-2007, Jon served as the Managing Editor of ERPtips SAP Library.
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