Will BI (and BO) Be Relevant to all SAP Functional Consultants? (and post TechEd updates)

Hey folks…I’m starting to come out of my post TechEd “content laboratory” and am now posting a range of content that may be of interest, most of which focuses on SAP skills trends. I have a fresh exchange to share with you below – a back and forth I had with Nathan Genez on the relevance of BI/BO to functional SAP consultants.

Before I get into this exchange with Nathan, I want to briefly share the latest content links I have on TechEd and SAP skills themes. My first piece on Tech Ed, “Inside the Hype of TechEd 2008,” was recently published in PAC’s online blog, “Feeding the SAP Ecosystem.” I will be writing for the PAC blog a couple of times a month. I also want to mention that on Tuesday, October 30, I will be doing a webcast on Becoming an SAP Business Process Expert as part of ASUG’s webcast series on this topic. There is still an opportunity to register, and I’m hoping to be able to include a link to the webcast after the event as well, we’ll see. This is really the first chance I’ve had to share my own views on this topic in detail in webcast form so I’m looking forward to it. I will also tie in SAP BPX certification, the new “Process First” book by Marco ten Vaanholt, and we’ll have some time for Q & A at the end as well.

Other new posts: my first “TechEd in Review” podcast, with guest Samantha Gammill of Osiris ERP Consulting, focuses on her trip to BPX Community Day as a functional consultant looking to transition into an “SAP Business Process Expert.” I called the podcast “Becoming an SAP Business Process Expert – One Consultant’s Journey” because it was interesting to hear what Samantha learned as someone who financed her own trip to TechEd in pursuit of these new skills. Hearing about how her team and her client reacted to her BPX lessons learned was also very interesting. I hope to upload this podcast to the BPX site next week.

A couple more new items: I have also posted an SAP hot skills podcast I did with Demir Barlas of SearchSAP.com that features David Foote of Foote Partners and his latest findings on which SAP skills are the hottest.

One of the major themes of TechEd 2008 was the flurry of Business Objects-related announcements. With CEO John Schwartz giving the TechEd keynote, we know that SAP continues to place a high degree of importance on the BI/BO product line, and its customers do as well.

In my first TechEd in Review piece, the aforementioned “Inside the Hype of TechEd 2008,” I didn’t spend a lot of time on Business Objects. That’s partially because I had published a pretty detailed piece on BO skills and trends just recently, after having attended the BO Influencers Summit in August of 2008.
 
One thing I can say about Business Objects – the two marketing executives I keep running into, Jonathan Becher and Franz Aman – are both real gentlemen. They are both articulate, competent, and patient in their explanations. If these two guys are representative of the caliber of people SAP acquired through the BO merger, then the human capital side of that merger is looking good. Becher didn’t even get mad at me when I almost walked out of a bowling alley (and Boston itself) accidentally wearing his dress shoes.

I do have some more Business Objects features planned. There will be a slight delay, because I am in the process of prepping for a webcast and several “TechEd in Review” podcasts. I also intend to write more on NetWeaver BPM – a topic I have finally researched enough to perhaps write a couple of halfway coherent things about.

But since BO was such an important theme of the conference, and since I do like to focus on SAP skills trends, I wanted to share an email interaction I had with Nathan Genez, an experienced SAP functional consultant who is an active player in SAP’s online communities. He is also the Managing Partner of Serio Consulting.

I count on Nathan to provide straight-shooting perspectives on what he is actually hearing from SAP customers about skills needs, because after all, that’s the bottom line. Whenever you focus on how SAP skills needs are evolving, you can lose track of the challenges of incorporating these skills on project sites now. Consultants like Nathan keep me focused on the realities of the present as well, and that serves all of our best interests.

In my original BO skills piece (notice I have managed not to refer to BO as “BobJ” once in this blog entry so far), several things caught Nathan’s eye – specifically the notion that SAP functional consultants would all need to know BI because it would enhance their skill set going forward. Nathan is a functional consultant with deep BW experience, and he reports that his BW skills have not given him a significant edge to date in terms of nabbing the best projects at the best rates. As a bonus, Nathan and I had an exchange about my presence on Twitter I’ll include for those who make it to the end of this piece. 🙂

Without further ado, let’s take a closer look at how this interaction played out.

Nathan’s first response: “The reason I’m not doing BW fulltime anymore is that it seems to me that 80% of the current BW consultant market is made up of ex-ABAPers. There are practically no functional people working in BW and <1% are pure front-end report specialists. I only know of a few BW consultants whose original skill sets could be classified as “functional.” That means that the current BW skill set is very focused and specialized… very technical. And if you don’t have that skill set, it doesn’t make sense to pursue BW work.

Basis folks work between the different apps, and Security guys do too. But that hasn’t carried over to functional resources. The people that really build the functional solutions aren’t going back and forth between FI/CO and a Financial data model. It seems that the same is true in other SAP areas such as SRM. once someone with an MM background went into SRM, they’ve never gone back.

So I feel strongly that this whole “every consultant will need to work with __” just isn’t true in any area. They may need to ‘know’ BW, but only in the sense of where it is and where the lines are drawn between their home area and BW. No one goes to a FI/CO consultant and asks them to build BW queries. They go to the BW team (the BW team wouldn’t allow it even if the person, such as me, could do it).”

In his next comment, Nathan responded to my “Tweet” from my Twitter live blog from the BO show: “Consensus from BI/BO insiders: BI is no longer a “skills specialization, but something all SAP consultants need to add to their skill set.” 

Nathan: “People have been saying this for years and it hasn’t happened yet.”

Jon Reed’s response: “True, but the technologies are advancing now. Keep in mind I didn’t say this myself; I tend to think this is still a few years out, but I think it will happen. Though as you say, there will always be a significant focus on the technical side, though ABAP will expand to include Java based on the BO acquisition, and there will be a lot of data warehousing/architecture work as well.”

Nathan: “So I feel strongly that this whole “every consultant will need to work with __” just isn’t true in any area.”

Jon Reed’s response: “Yeah, it’s a matter of degrees though. I think all consultants will need to know something about BI. Yes, it will be technical folks getting the bulk of the BI action, but I do think the GRC and EPM suites will be more of a factor in the years to come, and there will be functional work in those areas for sure – I’m including that in my conception of BI.

I would say the same is true of Solution Manager….those two areas, Solution Manager and BI, it will be helpful to know how those tools intersect with what you do, and as reporting extends through the enterprise and are more embedded in the SAP screens themselves, it should come up more. I don’t disagree with you, I think it’s more a matter that I was reporting a consensus statement in a “tweet” that is deserving of a much longer article at some point.”

After I wrote this to Nathan, I realized that I would also add eSOA to the list of things most, if not all, SAP consultants will eventually need to engage with, but again, with a multi-year time horizon.

Nathan then elaborated on why he is skeptical that the Business Objects acquisition will turn into a marketable skill area for SAP functional consultants. His thoughts were provocative, so here they are in their entirety:

“I remember when SAP Consulting tried to transition a lot of us Platinum Consultants into BW when it came out in 1999. And they had a similar message… “Everyone will eventually have to know this because it’s going to be so kickass and be the reporting tool to solve all of our/your problems.” It didn’t happen. It quickly became a completely separate skill set and, in my opinion, has remained that way.

The only way to work in BW was to completely switch over to it. Even the ABAPers weren’t able to easily transition into the new product. There were enough differences and enough of a functional appreciation to the implementation of the solution that they didn’t all come at once. I think it was only in the past three years that a tipping point occurred and now ABAP programmers make up the majority of the consultants in that area.

With the BIA (Business Intelligence Accelerator) and ABAP-OO (Object-Oriented ABAP), BI has now become an even more technical skill set in the eyes of SAP customers. So how is integrating a completely new product suite supposed to facilitate the engagement of other non-technical people in CRM, SRM, ERP, etc.? Most of the time, when you add more technology and functionality, you end up with more complexity.

This would seem to make it harder, not easier, to widen the base of users. VC (Visual Composer) is a perfect example of this. It was supposed to be a super-user tool but that won’t happen at that level. You have to be someone who is working 100% with SAP (a consultant or SAP support person) to use that kind of tool. I can think of only about 4-5 super-users that I’ve met in the past 13 years that are capable of using VC.”

Nathan also had some closing thoughts on how his role has evolved and where he would like to head next with BI/BW.

“All of that said, I genuinely hope for what the analysts are saying to be true. As someone who has done six years of hardcore data modeling across FI/CO and SD from BW release 1.2b all the way to BI 7.0, it would give me more credibility with customers if I could point to my robust BW experience as an edge over my competition. But like I said, I think the skill sets are so different that no customer goes to their MM consultant (or in-house employee who does MM processing or configuration) and asks them to build a BI query.

But if BobJ really is the giant leap forward in end-user usability that we’ve all wanted (and quite frankly, expect out of this acquisition), then the stigma of only BW people doing BI reporting will fade. I’m all in favor of that happening… more so than any other functional consultant who follows your writings. But I’m doubtful that it will happen.”

As promised, Nathan had some thoughts about finding me on Twitter:

Nathan: “That’s only the second time I’ve been to Twitter. I spend too much time on the Internet as it is and just don’t have time for it. I think the first time was to read some guy tweeting about how he was getting fired from Yahoo (turn in laptop, exit interview, etc.).

Jon Reed’s response: “I felt the same way at first, but it’s neat way for me to get out immediate thoughts and insights as they come in….we’ll see. My Twitter “micro blog” is focused on SAP skills trends and I’m trying to stay much more on topic than most Twitter blogs, without as many personal updates and randomness, but still keeping some personal flavor. Also, my “tweets” are also posted on the top right of my JonERP.com web pages as I post them, so it’s a way of giving my site more immediacy and keeping folks in the loop as to what I am up to.” I’ve noticed other SAP folks involved with Twitter and follow a number of them, it will be interesting to see if we agree on the value Twitter can add to our knowledge base – or is it just a way of staying connected socially? Comments on this welcome.

Jon Reed’s conclusion: my final thought on Nathan’s view is that he represents a very credible and appropriately skeptical take on the hype factor we run this risk of getting seduced by when it comes to SAP’s latest technical advances. At the same time, I think my previously cited BO skills piece is worth reading as a balance to this particular email exchange. What I tried to do in that piece was define some practical next steps for skills acquisition without drinking too much of the SAP-BO Kool Aid. With folks like Nathan chipping in, we should be able to improve our career prospects without falling into misleading hyperbole.