Two SAP Graduate Academy Associates attended the SAP Academic Conference Americas in Milwaukee, WI on February 22, 2013. They mingled with the 300 professors attending the conference, informally engaging with professors to show SAP’s new apps and discuss how SAP’s analytic, mobile, and HANA solutions are changing business. They also shared their stories of how they gained an opportunity to work at SAP. Check out their comments and stories below!
Thank you for the opportunity to participate in the SAP Academic Conference! It was a great experience and it allowed me to view SAP from a whole new perspective. I spoke with professors throughout the day. While I shared my insights on SAP’s innovations and demo’d some of our cool new apps, I also found they were interested in hearing my story and why I decided to work for SAP, which I was happy to share.
There were a few comments surrounding the changing business needs of industry, specifically the type of skills and talents employers are looking for. One professor mentioned how it’s critical that students don’t silo themselves within one functional area (i.e. writing code) while sacrificing their opportunities to develop other soft skills that are important in business. That it’s not necessarily the student who is a whiz at programming or the student that understands business strategy who is the ideal candidate, but rather the student that has experience and expertise from both ends of the spectrum. I felt this was a great testament to what SAP is trying to achieve with the Graduate Academy; hiring graduates with a wide range of backgrounds who are interested to develop a wide range of skills throughout their careers.
For anybody that wants to have a career in business, it is absolutely essential that they gain experience and understanding of everything that SAP stands for: mobility, analytics, in-memory data management with SAP HANA, etc. SAP’s business is quite literally what runs the vast majority of the world’s overall operations, and being exposed to SAP at an early stage in one’s education can only benefit them in the long run. The future of business will revolve around analytics, big data, HANA-type innovations and mobility, all of which are areas in which SAP excels. Choosing to dedicate at least a portion of their education towards learning about those technologies is as meaningful to a student’s future as understanding the value of a 401(k) account.
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Bryan Kruming, SAP Graduate Academy Associate
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Thanks for the opportunity to meet with professors at the SAP Academic Conference! The professors I talked to were interested in ways they could incorporate SAP into the classroom. Many were interested to learn and share best practices on topics ranging from simulating ERP use to introducing business models leveraging analytics, mobile, and in-memory computing.
As someone who did not study business, sales, or technology while an undergraduate, I feel very fortunate that my varied background allowed me to be a candidate and participant in SAP’s Graduate Academy. There I have realized the depth and success of SAP as a company by learning about its products, partnerships, and initiatives. The Graduate Academy has also allowed me to have a prolonged, in-depth look through rotations in our various areas and lines-of-business, which has helped me understand how all the parts of a large company work together successfully. I hope that my generation can see the benefit of such a program and SAP’s ability to continue to achieve and drive forward by making businesses run better. At the same time, I hope their professors help them realize the benefits of our company, especially with a program like this which offers continuous education.
Lauren Shanley, SAP Graduate Academy Associate
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About the SAP Graduate Academy
The SAP Graduate Academy http://scn.sap.com/community/about/blog/2011/08/03/introducing-the-sap-graduate-academy recruits recent college graduates (MBAs & undergrads) for a rotational training program. They are provided with a highly experiential learning environment giving them a wide foundation of SAP, its business model, solutions, processes and organization.
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