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Former Member
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I have been following this community for quite some time now and I also saw many questions from technical consultants with a typical coding background on how to become a BPX. I'm a technical consultant with industry process experience working towards BPX. I have written a step by step approach for a technical consultant which will guide him or her in transforming himself into a BPX.  1.  Choose the functional area.  This step is very important as it is not realistic for one to be an expert in all the functional areas. It is very important for the technical consultant to choose the functional area in which he or she wants to specialize. Specialization here would mean the technical consultant  would eventually go in depth into the functional area and would learn all the processes related to the functional area. The best possible option for an experienced technical consultant is to start looking at the modules in which he or she has worked the most.Technical consultants have the liberty to choose because,for them all the areas would be equally new because of lack ofindustry experience.  This step would serve as a foundation for the transformation. 2.  Learn the process overview  Here the consultant would start with an overview of the functional area which he or she has chosen. This is important as one need to understand the importance of the functional area in the day to day business. It will also expose the consultant to the most important processes of the functional area. It is important to get an overview of all the functional areas of business as it will help to understand the integration points between functional areas in next subsequent steps. 3. Understand the process in ERP system.The process when explained theoretically appears simple, but understanding the process from an IT or ERP perspective is challenging as one needs to understand how the process is implemented in the respective ERP system. This is step where business and technology starts interacting and from here it would go hand in hand. This step would take considerable amount of time and it would be continuous learning process. This step is a typical role of a functional consultant working in any ERP application. One should also try to understand the integration points of the different functional areas. For example the points where an SD and WM module interacts, cross functional processes which is dependent on the configuration of different functional areas. 4. Learn the business blue printing.This is an important step as this is the first step which will help you transform to a BPX. Here a technical consultant would go a step further and learn how the business architecture is configured in the ERP system. This serves as the foundation for whole ERP implementation. Reaching this stage will depend on how well a consultant is familiar with the business process and the ERP system. Process improvement starts right from this stage. The efficiency of the processes which would be configured based on the blue print. Blue printing is like laying the foundation for a building.   5. Knowledge (Technology and Process)updation. The major challenge for a BPX is to continuously update technical and process knowledge. For example a BPX should have an idea of all the available options (Tools and services) provided by an ERP vendor like SAP and also he or she should have a clear understanding of the emerging trends in the business process front. For a technical consultant it would be easy to understand the tools and services available to support a business process. He should focus more on the emerging trends in the business process which will help him to optimize the existing process for his clients. 6. Process Innovation.With most of the ERP vendors working on bridging the gap between technology and the business, a BPX would be expected to come with innovative ideas in the area of process improvement with or without using the technology. He would be constantly monitoring the existing process and also will be on a look out for new improvised process which would result in greater ROI for his clients.   Steps 3 and 4 are the most important steps and are time consuming too. It is advisable to spend more time on these steps as knowledge of the existing process is important to innovate a new one else one would end up re-inventing the wheel again.  Apart from the steps above it is very important for a consultant to have an excellent communication skill and project management skill. Communication plays an important role in understanding the existing process from the users and also it helps in conveying what a consultant thinks is effective for the client scenario. Here communication not only means speaking the language,it also includes knowing the necessary business and process jargons used in the day to day business.
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