But then when you look at what's happening in the modeling tools - I'll give you a very good example. Look at ARIS and how it ties in with the ESR. With ARIS I can do all my process modeling, but the cool thing about it now tying into the ESR is that I can model my process and then, right underneath it, model all the services that I need to enable that process.

So if you or any of the listeners are familiar with the SAP Enterprise SOA design methodology, where the first step of it is to define a consumer model and then to design a provider model, that consumer model is basically the process. So I'm going to design a composite application, and I look at my process and say , "I have to do step a, b, c, d, and e."  When I define my consumer model, I have steps a, b, d, c, and e - I just break it out separately. So I have my individual process steps and so forth and so on. And then on the provider model, I map the services that I need for each one of those steps.

Now with ARIS, I can define that consumer model, which is basically a mirror of the business process, and then directly define the provider model and model each one of those individual services within that provider model. So from one place I can go from process all the way down to service definition and implementation using one tool without any coding at all.

Reed:  So the savvy developer essentially looks at the changing SAP technical environment less as a threat and more as an opportunity to say, "I need to redefine how I add value to a project."

Sanders:  Most definitely. I mean, technology changes all the time, and if you're working in technology and you look at changes in paradigms as a threat, you shouldn't be working in technology. You know, I've been doing SAP for 14 years, I've been doing technology for 20 years, and I can't tell you how many times I've seen new paradigms come and go. And the only reason that I've been able to get to where I am now after working in IT for 20 years is that I made sure that I stayed up with what was coming and what was happening and didn't let myself just go, "Well, I'm going to be a Basis guy, I'm just going to do this Basis work forever." Because it always changes.

Sanders:  Well, one of the things that we've done is we've hired some SAP rock stars at director level and manager level positions, so we've been able to give good guidance on projects on what really should be done and what shouldn't be done. And it's provided a good balance to our implementation partner. For example, this came up on a project where we were doing interfaces and our SI wanted to do BDC loads and then wanted to write conversion tables within ERP for all the interfaces. Of course, immediately the EIA manager, the SAP technology director, and myself we all said, "Whoa, no no. That's the way we did it back in 1995. You have XI to do all that work now."

Now, if you didn't have people in-house that understood that, you wouldn't be able to stop the SI because the reason they were doing it was they had offshored the work to people that only knew ABAP and conversation tables. So it's one of those "I know a hammer so everything is a nail" situations, and since they had already offshored it and built their cost model around that, they did not want to do it the right way, which is mapping through XI: it would cost them more money. But we had the people that could say, "Whoa, no, that's wrong."

And what we're finding is we're still looking for people that are sharp, that have their skills, they know how the pieces can go together. When we go into our next implementation, which is going to be huge, we want to cut out the number of consultants - especially from our systems integrator - greatly. And we're looking to bringing some more people that are experienced. We're looking at using tools to help us as a solution manager, such as ARIS, so we don't have to have an army of 300 or 400 consultants come in.

One of the things my boss said was, "Does it make sense that we bring all these people in from our implementation partner, and we're basically paying $130, $150 an hour for these kids that are just out of college, went to a six-week boot camp, and we're paying for their on-the-job training? Doesn't it make more sense for us to take our own newbies and send them to training because in six months they're going to be exactly the same level as the consultants who are going to leave?"

That's one of the things we're doing: getting our own people trained and looking more to have consultants fill in the specialty roles. Another thing we found is that the boutique firms, in some of these, especially in the newer technology, know it much better than the major system integrators, and in lots of cases know it better than SAP because they focus on those areas. We've been talking to a few boutique firms, and some of the stuff they're doing is just like, "Wow, that's awesome. This is the type of stuff we want to do. You guys have the expertise." They're not going to get a $50 million contract from us to do it, but they'll have a couple of people placed for this, and if you're a small boutique firm, having a couple of people placed with a major company is a big deal to you.

Same thing with independents. If you're an independent out there, and you understand Adobe processing forms or you really know Web Dynpro. Web Dynpro is very, very hot right now. If you know these types of things, you can find work easily because more and more customers are looking at using some of these newer technologies, especially to break the user interfaces.

Reed:  Excellent. Well, I feel like we could go on and on in this conversation and still continue to uncover really great points. We're probably going to have to have Kent come back a little into his project cycle and talk to us more about what's happening in the market and what his product is up to because this is fantastic information.

I think it's time for us to wrap for today, though, and I think we've really taken some great lessons as far as what it means to have a coherent strategy for developing skills both on a personal level and also on a project-based level, so I'd really like to thank Kent for all his insights.

Is there anything we haven't covered on these topics today that you'd like to share with our listeners before we wrap?

Sanders:  I think the one thing that I would say to people is if you're a manager at a company and you're looking into an SAP or you already have it, don't be afraid of keeping your people trained and up to speed, because you're going to keep more of them than you lose. Those people are going to be valuable employees and they're going to really add a value to you, as opposed to just letting people's skills atrophy: At some point you're going to have to  bring in a whole bunch of consultants to do the work that they can't do.

And, if you are a practitioner, if you're a developer, if you're a Basis administrator, really look to learn something more of the engineering and architectural aspects of how the SAP product lines all fit together. Because people are really confused, even after NetWeaver has been out there for three years. Customers are still extremely confused about what it means, how it fits together, where SAP is going with this. And if you can answer those questions, you can write your own check.

Reed:  I can't think of a better way to finish. That was excellent. We'll have to check in with Kent down the line. So, best of luck in the next phase of your project, and thanks for giving our listeners insights on this "never a dull moment" marketplace.

With that, I'd like to thank our listeners for joining us today for this podcast interview on SAP consulting trends. This podcast was a joint venture between B2B Workforce, ERPGenie, and my site, JonERP.com, bringing you career answers for SAP professionals. Thanks for listening in. Check back soon for another podcast from JonERP.com, the only podcast that takes you inside the SAP consulting market. Kent, thanks for joining us today.

Sanders:  Thanks Jon, I really enjoyed it.

Editor's Note: This interview is not a verbatim conversation from the podcast. It was edited for clarity and readability; however, no content from the original conversation was removed.

Download Now (Must be Registered and Logged In!)