Job for Consultant: Re: [sap-career] Which Module Will Better Suit my Career with Presales, Business Development and Marketing ExperienceSD

mercredi 12 octobre 2011

Re: [sap-career] Which Module Will Better Suit my Career with Presales, Business Development and Marketing ExperienceSD

Posted by Roy B (SAP Financials Expert)
on Oct 12 at 4:59 AM

You should not choose any SAP module at this stage. You first need to get into a job in a company where you can learn business processes. SAP is a system for running big businesses and it is mostly a back office system, supporting accounting, finance, sales order processing, production, human resources administration, and all the other processes that are involved in running a business. For instance BI is Business Intelligence or analytical number-crunching. Accounting and Controlling includes such things as profitability analysis (CO-PA) and product costing (CO-PC),. Then there is MM - Materials Management, PP - Production Planning, MRP - Materials Resource Planning, and SD - Sales and Distribution. The last is mostly about sales order processing but also includes the logistical side of getting the goods to the customers, and it feeds the Profitability Analysis with data. SD is in turn fed by CO-PC with the costs of the goods sold. So the whole system is totally integrated, and each module links into other modules and feeds data to them or grabs data from them. Before you can do anything useful in SAP you have to understand all these relationships which reflect the day-to-day operation of the business.

An SAP consultant specializes in one or several related modules. I, for example, am an SAP Financials consultant which means I specialize in Financial Accounting, Controlling and Treasury. However I also have to understand what happens in SD, MM, PP, MRP and HR which all interact with FI and CO and then I have to understand how the numbers from FI and CO are moved across to BI (a separate system interfaced with SAP proper) for analysis purposes. I can do this because I have many years of experience in business and industry and know how all these disparate elements fit together. That is what you have to learn. As a consultant one is expected to bring expertise to the client company, and to supply something they do not already have which is the knowledge of how SAP can be tailored to fit their particular business needs. That means you have to be able to sit with people who know their own business and be able to talk to them about their jobs and their requirements, how to improve their processes, how SAP can make their lives easier or save them effort and money, maybe even reduce costs by making some jobs (and therefore people) redundant. To be able to make a big difference in a business you first have to be able to understand that business, to be able to take it apart and put it back together in a logical and efficient manner. That means you have to bring expert knowledge to the table, not only of the SAP system but also of business in general and regulatory constraints, laws and rules that affect the business environment and how it operates. It is not a kiddie's playground.

When you have gained enough experience to be able to sell your expertise you will probably find that you do not need to do a certification course in SAP, because you will be beyond that stage. I have never needed certification to get where I am. I am a qualified accountant and business consultant already and have learned SAP on the ground and do not need that extra bit of paper. You may want the bit of paper and in certain markets (such as the Indian market) it can be a definite help, but I operate in Europe and the USA where we do not need it. It's a "nice to have". Many very good consultants have come up the hard way through working in factories and learning their stuff on the job and along the way have learned SAP from using it. I have met MM and PP consultants who used to be factory managers.

Hopefully the above will give you some insight into the real world of SAP consulting. The guys who say "You can do CRM" or "You can do SD" are full of you-know-what and are not being helpful at all.

Rgds, Roy

---------------Original Message---------------
From: savitha murugan
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 3:47 AM
Subject: Which Module Will Better Suit my Career with Presales, Business Development and Marketing ExperienceSD

Hi Roy,

Please tell me what module i should choose. Or else what i have to learn to be a SAP SD consultant. what are the things i have to learn.

Please reply.

Regards,
Savi

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