I have written about the fundamentals of a good SAP career strategy, but I continue to get career questions that raise these same points. So I decided to launch a series in my SAP Career Blog that talks about the main job search mistakes that SAP professionals make. Most of these mistakes apply equally to experienced SAP pros as well as those who are new to the field, though there are some distinctions between these  two groups we’ll get into as well.

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It’s shocking how quickly our economic confidence can change. Along with that, professional uncertainties are exposed. So how should SAP consultants respond to the current market conditions? I have put together the following pointers based on my research to date. Just keep in mind the obvious disclaimer that no one knows exactly what lies ahead.

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So, I’m back from TechEd 2008 and pulling together many different themes that I believe are of importance to JonERP.com readers. I’m going to use this blog entry to update with key links and useful information from the conference.

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The Silent TechEd ‘08 Issue: Maintenance Fee Increases and Customer Dissatisfaction

In my  PAC blog entry on TechEd, "Inside the Hype of TechEd 2008," I wrote about two topics that I thought deserved more airtime than they got at the conference: the Oracle-SAP lawsuit and the maintenance fee increase backlash. I noted that the latter issue is the one that concerns me the most. To be honest, the more I think about it, the more it bothers me. I’m not sure I gave this enough weight in my TechEd in Review piece. Just because an issue isn’t talked about doesn’t mean it’s not important. Sometimes, it’s the elephant in the room.

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I’m looking forward to SAP TechEd 2008.

For one thing, TechEd 2008 marks the official unveiling of the BPX Skills Certification, which I recently did a podcast on for SAP BPX. I’m really looking forward to TechEd’s BPX Community Day as well. I’ll be moderating a BPX skills panel in the afternoon, so if you’re there, make a point of stopping by! Here’s a BPX Community Day schedule.

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On Tuesday, August 12 in Boston, I had the opportunity to attend the SAP BO Summit. The Summit was an opportunity for so-called “Influencers” to learn more about the SAP BO Roadmap and the value proposition that SAP/Business Objects provides to SAP customers. Some of the main events from this summit are now posted online. You can also see the media relations notices from the event.

My goal when attending these kinds of events is always the same: to get an inside view of the key emerging skills that SAP professionals and project teams should be tracking.

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On July, 26, I conducted a podcast interview with Kent Sanders, Senior Technology Architect for CSC Consulting, about the beginning of the end for the traditional R/3 Basis Consultant, and how to make the skills transition to “NetWeaver Engineer.” This was one of my favorite podcasts; Kent did a terrific job of breaking down the practical steps necessary to stay on the cutting edge of the technical side of SAP. Read the rest of this entry »

JonERP.com is now entering its second year!

Thanks to all of of you who have been a part of this site, posed questions and comments, and helped to make this site a resource for the SAP community. Great things are ahead! I’m committed to building this site into the best place on the web to make sense of SAP career trends, and I’m thankful to your continued readership and interest and excellent questions. Read the rest of this entry »

Too often, SAP consultants focus only on skills. Yes, you need the skills, but learning how to get visibility for your skills is essential. That involves mastering all the aspects of job hunting, interviewing, and most importantly, self-marketing. If you’re an independent consultant, or aspire to be an independent SAP consultant, then marketing is essential. Marketing is also crucial if you are looking to eventually build your own consulting practice. Let me go over some key aspects to successful SAP marketing as well as some good and bad news about marketing over the web. Recently, I did a webcast on "Best Practices in Building Your SAP Consulting Business" that covered many of these points as well. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a very hard question to answer, in part because money is relative. If you have plenty of cash stashed away, then you can never go wrong with an investment in SAP certification. But, few of us fit into that category. That means we need a clearer understanding of how SAP certification fits into our career strategy. SAP certification is full of controversy because of the contrast between the importance of certification versus hands-on SAP skills. In this blog entry, I’ll summarize some of my views on SAP certification and hopefully we can get some comments going on this topic also. Read the rest of this entry »

Every time I get back from Sapphire or TechEd, one story remains a constant: What are we going to do about the so-called SAP skills shortage? Or, if we want to push SAP on this a little bit, we could say, "What is SAP doing about the skills shortage?"; I have a problem with this line of thinking. Not because the skills demand isn’t real - it obviously is. But a simplistic view of the "skills shortage" doesn’t serve anyone in the SAP ecosystem very well. Read the rest of this entry »

I probably field as many questions about SAP Master Data Management (MDM) as any other emerging area of SAP. There are two ways to assess the viability of an SAP skill. One is to consider a tool like MDM as part of a broader SAP skill set. The other way is to consider MDM as a possible consulting focus and specialty. In this SAP career blog entry, I’ll consider both aspects of MDM in terms of its "skills marketability." Our bottom line is: how good does SAP MDM look on a resume? Read the rest of this entry »

As we enter the “SAP eSOA era,” one thing is certain: the SAP functional skill set is changing. What we don’t know is how soon these changes are going to happen. We also don’t know for certain is what the “functional consultant of the future” will look like. One thing, however, is clear: consultants are going to need to bring more to the table that just configuration skills. Increasingly, companies want consultants who can add a deeper value to their implementation beyond the customization of SAP tables. Read the rest of this entry »

This is one of the hardest questions you could possibly ask me, because SAP is so vast that there is never one tool that will suit every SAP consultant. The best approach is to assess your current skill set, figure out where SAP is headed with its new eSOA architecture, and make sure you bridge that “skills gap” before you get left behind. But having said that, you asked the question and I’m going to try to give you a good answer. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the years, I have published some big interviews on SAP consulting that have disappeared from the Internet. One of the benefits of being a JonERP.com reader is being able to get access to these exclusive interviews again. One of my favorites, my 2002-2004 interview and correspondence with NetWeaver Portals expert Pat McCarthy, has now been reposted. In addition to a great view of the emerging Enterprise Portals market, there is some timeless advice on keeping on top of your skill set in this interview. In this blog entry, we’ll review some of the most important consulting advice from this piece. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently, I published a piece on "SAP Skills You Want to Have" for SearchSAP.com. The complete version of that article is now available exclusively on JonERP.com. This article has generated some interesting feedback. It’s important to note that the focus of this piece is NOT "what’s hot" in SAP. That’s a slightly different question and I’ll do a separate piece on that. The focus of "SAP Skills You Want to Have" is a bit more forward-thinking. Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I got this excellent question from an SAP XI consultant. He wanted to know how to position his XI skills going forward, in the context of SAP’s eSOA strategy. Clearly, eSOA is central to SAP’s product vision going forward, so we could ask ourselves the same question of any number of SAP products. But for this time around, let’s focus on XI. Read the rest of this entry »

This question was sent to me by an individual who has been searching unsuccessfully for SAP consulting roles for close to a year’s time. This is a frustrating situation, and it doesn’t just happen to those who have no SAP experience. I heard from someone else in this situation recently who actually had a number of years of experience in SAP Financials working in an "end-user" capacity, and they were also having trouble finding a consulting gig. So what do you do about it? Read the rest of this entry »

In recent years, approaches to SAP training have been pretty similar: take classes from SAP (highest prestige value) or look at some of the online training options. Online SAP training has picked up quite a bit of momentum. On this web site, we put together a directory of online SAP training options. What we found just scratches the surface of what is out there. Read the rest of this entry »

One common theme on the JonERP.com web site is how to transition your SAP skills in the NetWeaver and eSOA era. A big challenge here is figuring out the timing of the skills changes that are in the works. Change your skill set too soon, and you are ahead of the curve with few projects to choose from. Wait too long to make your skills transition, and you have fallen behind. From the back of the pack, it’s hard to catch up. So what’s an SAP consultant to do? Read the rest of this entry »