Gauri Chhabra
Goodplans shape good decisions. That’s why good planning helps to make elusive dreams come true, says Geoffrey Fisher.
With the corporates turning into conglomerates and the boundaries between departments and corporations fast thinning and dimming, there is a growing need for a seamless integration of departments. The world has shrunk into a flat ball and day after day we find Accounts talking to Finance and Finance talking to Operations. In sucha scenario, when departments talk to each other, companies have expanded operations across the globe, how does the Management team sitting at a centralized location cometo know about diverse departmentslike inventory, sales, finance, and payroll?
All this is done through ERP or Enterprise Resource planning. One of the software programming systems that make it possible is the SAP. Now the Q arises:
What is SAP?
As mentioned,SAP or System Analysis and Program Development is a German software programming system that helps in smooth functioning of a modern corporation. It is the mechanism by which, say, the leaves, PPF and other perks get factored in the Payroll of an organization that may have thousands of employees spread across different locations in the globe. The software is installed on the corporation’s computers. It provides log in credentials to different users as per their roles and the information they can access and use for their decision making.
Owing its genesis to the early 1970’s by 5 IBM engineers it gained momentum in the early 21st century when organizations expanded their operations both vertically and horizontally. Today it stands tall and has become the world’s leading software application providing company. Today it provides customized solutions to many of our business needs,to improve their performance and cater to their clients better.
Hence, the need for SAP
Professionals. Course
Curriculum and pedagogy:
SAP is a macro level field of study that consists of everything, ranging from business, academic and technical skills. It is specially designed to broaden the skills and acquire necessary knowledge about required tools for a student so that one can gain practical knowledge and apply it later when required.SAP has tied up with NIIT in India and several other institutes to serve the course curriculum with Indian students. The SAP certificate course is intensive and it is crafted well for students to easily follow through.
Getting Started:
When you begin to think about your SAP career, there are forking pathways you can take: you can start by deciding whether you want to be go in for technical , functional or consulting side. Your focus is dictated by a bi- pronged approach: the overall background of your experience, and where you want to be headed from there.
Technical side:
On the technical side, there is a distinction to be made between two main career paths: SAP developer and 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 a SAP Security consultant, security is often a skill set under the SAP Basis umbrella.On the developer side, experience customizing SAP reports, making UI enhancements, and developing third party interfaces are examples of bread-and-butter skills.
Functional side:
In case you are a Bachelor of Commerce with an interest in Accounting or an MBA with specialization in Marketing and Finance, you can take up the functional side of SAP like FI- Financial Analysis and Company and CO,SCM-supply chain management, or CRM- customer relationship management.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. To become a 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.
If you have experience consulting in other enterprise applications like Oracle, PeopleSoft, 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. However, this doesnot reduce the significance of the consulting side of the SAP. It usually takes years before you can become an 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.
On the whole, to become an effective consultant, you need to strengthen either your hands-on SAP skills or your overall consulting skills. Think out of the box and be hands on.
Institute Scape:
It is very important to go through a good SAP training program in order to achieve beyond foundational learning on SAP. You can get real SAP training programs and fill the loop holes in your self-study. There are wide ranges of training programs available on SAP. You can choose either online SAP training or SAP classroom training or enroll with some good trainer or SAP learning group to enhance your expertise. There are a host of options and it depends on you to choose the best that is suitable for you.Some of the well- known institutions offering SAP Certifications are Siemens Information Systems Limited having its centers at New Delhi, Secunderabad, Kolkata, Chennai andKerala.
Following are the some SAP training institutes in Delhi:
* Siemens India, G.K.
* H.P.,N.Place
* SAP Labs, N.Place
* Webcom Technologies, Delhi.
* PCS Systems, Gurgaon
* MaxVistas , Delhi
* Sanchit, M.nagar
* Mass Technologies, Mehrauli
* Genpact, Gurgaon
* Visnova, Gurgaon
The Cutting Edge:
For those who are thinking, Is SAP Certification a must? the answer is No, not necessarily.There are many people in the market who are non- certified, earning good amount of money than the Certified Consultants. Therefore, Certification is not a must for you to fetch a job in the market. However, if there are two people shortlisted with the similar skills and experience, probably, in such situations, the Certification will give you a cutting edge. Otherwise, the customers are looking for the people who can effectively deliver the goods without certification.
Another feather in the cap that you need to have and would give you a cutting edge is diversification of your knowledge. It is true that you master on one SAP module such as SAP FI or SAP CO and so on. However, you need to have an understanding of other SAP modules as well. As a SAP consultant, you need to be a jack of all trades and yet a master of your specialization. It is not possible to have a thorough understanding of each of the SAP modules but at least you should know the basic processes of other domains. You need to be aware of what is happening across SAP modules and stay updated, to progress successfully as a SAP consultant.You need to explore your knowledge and expertise beyond your limits and therefore should not be restricted to a confined domain. As you grow professionally, it is ideal to enhance your knowledge on application functionality and on how to implement or optimize architecture. Thus, discovering more domains is another important step towards a successful SAP career.
Thirdly,you need to stay updated with the current SAP world and latest developments. Knowledge is a moving process and you need to be aware of all the happening in the SAP programs and applications in order to be in vogue with the changes. You can be member of SAP professional groups and forums, subscribe to SAP portals to know about the updat
es on SAP program.Staying updated with latest SAP developments is very essential to achieving success in the corporate world. You can subscribe to popular newsletters, magazines and attend SAP trainin
g programs both online and classroom so that your knowledge never gets outdated.
The Road Ahead:
There is a various array of industries that utilize SAP technology, allowing you great flexibility in your career choices as an SAP consultant. In fact
, the list of industries that use SAP will continue expanding into the coming decades as small to medium businesses find it increasingly necessary to become SAP users in order to remain competitive.
In addition, SAP is reinforcing this trend by turning its attention to the small and medium-sized business markets, developing products and services specifically adapted to the needs of these companies.
So in case you follow the route of SAP, the road to success is smooth and silky…
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