SAP - Enterprise Resource Planning - Advice, Information

[pXius]

So without going into tons of detail;

I'm emigrating to Canada this year and I'm very keen to do a bit of a career jump. I'm currently what can best be described as a financial modeler. I do forecasting and reporting for various projects across a number of sectors.

My formal qualifications, BCom Risk and Investment management with a Hons In Econometrics and Investments.
Informally I've got a few Udemy JS courses and such, mostly because I'm very tech inclined and very interested in development.

Not wanting to just toss my financial qualification to the wind is what steered me in SAP's direction, where my qualifications may still be of some use with more exposure to development.

Now I've done quite a bit of reading but the career path choices are numerous and the study paths all seem very entangled. I would very much appreciate it if someone could give a bit of advice keeping in mind my current qualifications/experience, especially what courses/certifications I should be looking at, and which institution I should be talking to for said training.

Thanks guys.

 

[HelloCat]

So without going into tons of detail;

I'm emigrating to Canada this year and I'm very keen to do a bit of a career jump. I'm currently what can best be described as a financial modeler. I do forecasting and reporting for various projects across a number of sectors.

My formal qualifications, BCom Risk and Investment management with a Hons In Econometrics and Investments.
Informally I've got a few Udemy JS courses and such, mostly because I'm very tech inclined and very interested in development.

Not wanting to just toss my financial qualification to the wind is what steered me in SAP's direction, where my qualifications may still be of some use with more exposure to development.

Now I've done quite a bit of reading but the career path choices are numerous and the study paths all seem very entangled. I would very much appreciate it if someone could give a bit of advice keeping in mind my current qualifications/experience, especially what courses/certifications I should be looking at, and which institution I should be talking to for said training.

Thanks guys.

If you are leaning towards ERP, given your qualifications, you would probably best fit into a financial reporting/general financial consultant role. BI might also be a good fit.

I mean it obviously varies a lot, but your day to day would then involve everything from setting up the GL and other financial structures to creating financial reports and doing recons etc. If you go into BI it would be a bit more specialized, but it would generally involve setting up extracts or reports for granular financial data.

I work in ERP but not SAP itself, though I've come across it quite often.

I'm not too familiar with the certifications for SAP, but I would look into SAP finance certification and SAP BI certification. There is always demand for SAP consultants worldwide, so if you can get certified and skill up you should do fine.

 

[pXius]

If you are leaning towards ERP, given your qualifications, you would probably best fit into a financial reporting/general financial consultant role. BI might also be a good fit.

I mean it obviously varies a lot, but your day to day would then involve everything from setting up the GL and other financial structures to creating financial reports and doing recons etc. If you go into BI it would be a bit more specialized, but it would generally involve setting up extracts or reports for granular financial data.

I work in ERP but not SAP itself, though I've come across it quite often.

I'm not too familiar with the certifications for SAP, but I would look into SAP finance certification and SAP BI certification. There is always demand for SAP consultants worldwide, so if you can get certified and skill up you should do fine.

Thanks!

Looking into BI now.

 

[Nospheratu]

There's a training facility in Woodmead that you can maybe call and ask for advice with regards to the relevant academy courses and certifications. Link below.

SAP Johannesburg

training.sap.com

The website also contains all the courses they offer but I would rather speak to someone as there's so many of them for BI/BO alone that you could end up wasting money on the incorrect course for your intended career path.

I agree with @HelloCat though, SAP Business Objects/Business Intelligence seems like a good fit for your particular background.

Another consideration, and I don't mean to put a damper on your plans, is that the industry values work experience over certifications. Certification alone doesn't carry much weight and it's difficult to secure a position with no work experience. That said, it's not impossible.

Best of luck!

 

[Munk]

It's very simple, you start with SAP FI/CO certification and go from there.
I've been working with SAP for 7 years, Media24/Shoprite being two major clients.
Everyone who buys SAP has to do FI/CO (Finance/Costing) as the base installation.
Thereafter you buy and install (I'm super over-simplifying this) various modules that you require to run your business.

For example, SAP HCM (Human Capital Management) is great if you want to move your employee/payroll system over to SAP.
There are also "Industry Solutions" that are very specific modules for specific types of businesses.
For example, there is a specific Media Service solution that we brought into Media24, SAB has a Brewery solution. These are specialisted template implementations, you know what your transactions are and how they are necessary for this type of industry.
For Shoprite we went SAP Retail, which is a popular "off the shelf" solution, you can google it and see all the transactions that are included and what they do.

I'm gonna stop there. BI is great but it's an absolute nightmare if your client doesn't have the server backbone for it and they use multiple systems that have to interface with each other (getting that dataset onto BI in an intelligable manner is utter hell for developers).

 

[Munk]

Another consideration, and I don't mean to put a damper on your plans, is that the industry values work experience over certifications. Certification alone doesn't carry much weight and it's difficult to secure a position with no work experience. That said, it's not impossible.

Best of luck!

Certifications most definitely don't impact your ability to find work, this is largely experience based and if you have a good repore with your agency then your experience will get you far.

BUT, if you want to command the ridiculous salaries that SAP consultants can claim, you need to be certified. Certification is an automatic "this is his/her/zer minimum CTC per hour, take it or cry when your implementation fails."

This isn't a joke.
Informal SAP FI/CO? R350-R700 depending on travel and other things.
Formal SAP FI/CO certification? R900, non-negotiable.

Experienced SAP Project Manager with a formal SAP certification? Enjoy a take-home of over R100 000 a month.

 

[HelloCat]

I'm gonna stop there. BI is great but it's an absolute nightmare if your client doesn't have the server backbone for it and they use multiple systems that have to interface with each other (getting that dataset onto BI in an intelligable manner is utter hell for developers).

This is so true. In my opinion BI in general is one of those things that is all the rage and filled with lovely buzzwords, but almost nobody uses it fully because it's outrageously complicated to do anything fancy with it. But BI sells well because it has nice KPI pictures and pie charts and everybody loves those.

That being said, BI guys who can get meaningful data from large or complicated data sets command truly enormous rates. Like, just stupidly crazy rates.

 

[Munk]

BI has all the looks but it needs to be 100% supported by:

• Good back-end servers (waiting for pie charts to load in front of a full room of managers is one of those special moments in life were you just want to die right there and then)
• A stable source for your datasets
• Good visual design (seriously, it really does help more technically challenging jobs to have good graphs/charts/summaries/etc

It is also all the rage because it's the one ring to rule them all in the SAP world. You install all these modules, interface them with all your other systems, then you bring it all together with the unicorn that is BI. It's the summary/reporting aspect that makes is to unbelievably attractive to all levels of management/technical work.

Besides the requirements above, you also have two other major problems to contend with.

1)
BI gets implemented towards the end of the project lifecycle.
Companies are notorious for leaving Reporting as the last implementation due to the (fair, but still wrong) logic that you can only report once you have everything else in place.
It's like saying you can only see the puzzle and know what it is after you have 100% completed it.
Logical but complete bullshit.
So you have the least amount of time to do the most amount of damage control in terms of where your data sits and how well your servers perform AND you have to report directly to mid/upper management because that want those pie charts yesterday.

2)
You need someone, someone with knowledge in SQL at the very least, to be able to interpret all this data and train it back to other people so that they can understand what it all does. I spent an hour training 2 reports to over 100 people, both in-person and over google video chat.

You absolutely must under-estimate your own ability to explain what your BI reports are doing. You have to be able to explain to the point that everyone in the room gets it. You either become the trainer or you end having to train the trainer who then trains everyone else.

I'm making it sound nightmarish but what I'm ultimately trying to say is, get your ducks in a row with the company you work for and yes, going the BI route is going to earn you a very comfortable living.
Oh, and knowing back-end/middle-layer/UX layer application architecture is amazingly helpful, just learn a little bit of SQL and it will pay dividends for the rest of your working life.

 

[Munk]

This is so true. In my opinion BI in general is one of those things that is all the rage and filled with lovely buzzwords, but almost nobody uses it fully because it's outrageously complicated to do anything fancy with it. But BI sells well because it has nice KPI pictures and pie charts and everybody loves those.

That being said, BI guys who can get meaningful data from large or complicated data sets command truly enormous rates. Like, just stupidly crazy rates.

Good SAP BW/BI Devs make Fullstack Devs look like peasants when it comes to earnings. I definitely entered the SAP world from the wrong direction.

 

[Nospheratu]

Certifications most definitely don't impact your ability to find work, this is largely experience based and if you have a good repore with your agency then your experience will get you far.

BUT, if you want to command the ridiculous salaries that SAP consultants can claim, you need to be certified. Certification is an automatic "this is his/her/zer minimum CTC per hour, take it or cry when your implementation fails."

Couldn't agree more, I've seen implementation failures happen too many times when business tries to save a money on consultant fees.

The reason I mentioned the bit about work experience/certification is that @pXius might think that by completing a relevant academy course and then certifying in it he will be primed to enter the market and expect to find find work fairly easily which the exception rather than the rule.

 

[HelloCat]

You have to be able to explain to the point that everyone in the room gets it.

I have too often found this to be literally impossible.

 

[Munk]

Couldn't agree more, I've seen implementation failures happen too many times when business tries to save a money on consultant fees.

The reason I mentioned the bit about work experience/certification is that @pXius might think that by completing a relevant academy course and then certifying in it he will be primed to enter the market and expect to find find work fairly easily which the exception rather than the rule.

You hit the nail on the head, certification is a good route to follow, but you kinda need to learn to swim before you attempt a life-guard certification. Don't let go of the desire to be certified, but definitely don't put it as #1 on your To-Do list.

 

[Munk]

I have too often found this to be literally impossible.

I'm a (now ex) SAP Trainer/QA Consultant, I have some ice to sell you.

 

[pXius]

Thanks guys! The info so far is invaluable!

 

[HelloCat]

Couldn't agree more, I've seen implementation failures happen too many times when business tries to save a money on consultant fees.

Yeah gotta love that, especially with SAP. These guys spend tens of millions on licensing fees for SAP then try and nickle and dime to actually implement the damn thing. Like buying a Ferrari then trying to run it with vegetable oil instead of petrol.