From the past forty years, the technologies are regularly varying. For instance; the usage of main-frame computers had started from the mid of the seventies, the client-server computing and online internet revolution got functional in the era of eighties. In the year 1970, five earlier employees of IBM have designed new enterprise software application called a System, Application, and Product (SAP) in data processing. Presently, SAP is becoming active in the business market, and SAP application has become one of the leading business applications.
Many organizations no matter whether it is large or small sized are now transforming towards SAP application software and making it a primary application.
As per the world ERP market share report 2013, SAP has around 24 Percent market share globally. Every year numerous companies are moving towards SAP software, and hence there are substantial job opportunities in this particular field. The people with SAP skills get high salary as compared to other IT jobs. Most of the people want to develop their career in this specific field, but they precisely do not know from where they can begin their career. Also, there is a shortage of SAP skilled people thus educating people about SAP, and its related career will help them to establish their future career path. This article provides a few SAP career guidelines.
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1) SAP as a Career:
SAP is a growing field, and it is good to develop a career in this particular field. Many candidates are interested in developing SAP career, they think that it is only about learning configuration, but that is not true. To be a consultant you have to carry out many functions. There are a few points which will help any candidate to build themselves as an SAP consultant:
Study the various business processes, maintained by SAP modules which you are concentrating.
Identify the common challenges which businesses are facing by executing such operations.
Discover how these problems can be resolved with the SAP solution and at what cost.
Learn appropriate success stories, research case studies and client references.
Demonstrate how to plan your responses along with the issues which your company is encountering.
Identify how to create a business case as well as making effective plans.
Refine your skills in developing detailed business strategies, documenting business requirements, giving options and convincing your clients, giving necessary support during implementation. Along with this, the technical skills are also needed to offer excellent solutions to potential clients.
2) A satisfying career in SAP:
If you want a satisfying career in SAP, then you should give some time in developing your skills beyond the technical expertise. For example, learn to observe the large picture while giving a solution; recognize what problem you are resolving and how best you are performing. You should speak about your contributions, get feedback and improve yourself.
3) Access the concealed job market:
Being a just SAP consultant, you should also know the hidden jobs opportunities in SAP as there are numerous SAP job opportunities which are not published but still kept. You can approach such a hidden job market easily via LinkedIn or any other medium if you are in contact with such employers or recruiters. Improve your network by communicating with experts; share your knowledge and skills with associated community regularly.
4) Select any employment model which better match your skills:
Well, there are permanent, contractual as well as freelancing career options which most of the SAP candidates are looking. Your growth all depends upon learning. From time to time you can master in new skills at a short-term or long-term practice.
Those candidates who distinguish between such roles are primarily concerned about monetary gains and other traveling needs.
As far as permanent employment is concerned, like support role at SAP CCOE, consultants typically work as regular staff and are allowed to get the classic remunerations.
Whereas contracting roles are explicit to the task and last for a particular period, i.e., typically till the extent of the project.
Another service model is freelance consulting. In this type of job, SAP consultants are self-employed and provide services without getting into any employment contract.
5) Select the SAP role as per your professional interest:
Well, there are lots of roles in the SAP domain which the candidate can select for their career growth. Few roles are:
If you have business expertise, then you can go with a functional consultant role.
If you have algorithm knowledge, then you can become a technical consultant.
If you can use devices, then you can become a technology consultant. A candidate can become a support consultant if he/she has excellent interactive skills.
If you are interested in educating people than you can become a training consultant.
The candidate can choose any of these roles as per their professional skills and experience. All these roles have career development opportunities starting from a consultant to a team lead and then Project manager.
6) Capitalize time and money intelligently for professional enhancement:
The candidate should capitalize their money and time in learning SAP online; it has a lot of benefits which help you to improve your skills as compared to the classroom training. Some of the advantages are:
The candidate can access many courses.
They can attend a class several times until they completely understand the concepts.
The candidates are flexible to participate in the sessions at any time and place.
In the online platform, all the relevant materials are available in one place.
7) In addition to the core area of interest, obtain extra skills:
The candidate should learn several new skills apart from their primary field of interest such as functional, technical, etc. and become an outstanding consultant. Few examples are:
SAP Activate: This supports customers to start fast, build smart, and execute simple as per the description of SAP.
SAP Solution Manager: This helps to maintain solution lifecycle effectively from execution to operations.
8) Learn the fundamental solution delivery methods:
As an SAP consultant, you should know the solution earlier which you are going to provide along with the implementation method that will work best for your client; this will rely on the scope of the project, budget and the time.
9) Study the various techniques to solve a single problem:
If you want to learn any of the SAP modules quickly, then you should work for SAP associates. Usually, in such type of service model, the candidate gets a chance to work on various projects and with dissimilar customers. Each of these projects has different challenges to solve and learn different scenarios from them. With the help of SAP solutions, you can manage various business requirements, and when you deliver a solution for them, you will get to know all such options. The candidates can enhance their skills by learning more opportunities.
10) Develop your skills further than technical skills:
With the help of SAP support role at a CCOE, i.e., Customer Centre of Excellence you can achieve more the expertise beyond your technical work, like:
Resolving incidents and recognizing root-cause of problems,
Changing and improving solutions because of the variations in business necessities.
11) Enhance your communication skills:
If you can communicate properly, then you can show your excellent consulting skills, and everyone can know about your extraordinary SAP Consultant skills. You should mention the following points while writing to others:
Context to clarify the reason due to which you are contacting the reader. Expectations which explains that why you think the recipient is the right person of your communication.
Actions to take which you anticipate from him/her including redirecting such should be required.
Feelings of appreciation, irrespective of his or her position in the organizational pyramid to help you out.Thus, you can communicate with your audience by following the above-mentioned simple principles.
12) Study how you can provide better solutions:
If you know the fundamentals of business requirements, then you can deliver better solutions. Well, it does not mean that you are resolving a real problem if you are meeting predetermined requirements. Thus, before designing a solution, don’t look only at the specification documents but you should also spend the time to understand the business requirements. These methods will not only help you to meet the expectations but will also help you to go beyond expectations.
13) Stay relevant in the job market:
If you want to stay relevant and in-demand in a rapidly changing job market, then you should be able to manage these changes. For that follow the below points:
The number of years of experience.
Reputation plays an important role.
Ability to see the complete picture is precious.
Movable and changing experience is valued more by companies.
14) An SAP consultant should have different skill sets:
The SAP job market is changing rapidly and therefore, to become successful, the SAP consultants should have various skills now. The consultant needs to know about the skills which keep you associated with the skills in demand.
15) The candidates should know their career objectives, before mentioning it in resume:
You have to create an attractive CV, no matter if you are an experienced SAP consultant, beginner in the particular field, or a candidate looking for a great career ahead. A great resume will help you to enhance your career in the correct direction.
Apart from these points, there are a few more points which help you to develop a successful career in SAP:
The candidates should know the difference between the types of project.
The candidate should identify the various ways of preparing end-users with SAP skills.
The candidate should be able to design all possible solutions.
They should know how to write clear specifications.
They should understand the art of giving information.
They should focus on the role, not in the position.
The candidate should be clear while describing their accomplishments.
The SAP consultant should create their LinkedIn profile.
Conclusion:
The SAP job market is relatively high as compared to other IT related jobs. The people with SAP skills can get a high range of salary; thus most of the candidate wants to develop their career in this particular field. The points mentioned above help a candidate to build his/her career in any of the SAP modules and also in enhancing his/her SAP career to achieve the career objective.
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