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Author's profile photo Caroleigh Deneen

Sven Ringling – SCN Member of the Month March 2015

Sven Ringling is the SCN Member of the Month for March 2015. Sven is a Director at iProCon UK, where he is a seasoned SAP HCM consultant. He is polished and witty, and draws on many years of international HR deployments to share advice, answer questions and write informative blogs on SCN.

I enjoyed our talk and hearing more about his travels, work experiences and perspective on consulting in today’s environment. Sven, if I ever find a box of time, I’ll be sure to share it πŸ˜‰

Can you tell us a bit about yourself, where you live, what kind of work you do, and other things you would like to share with the community (hobbies, fun facts)?

  • Live in London
  • Work with customers on implementation and improvement projects for their HR systems and build the SAP HCM and SuccessFactors team of iProCon UK. What I like most about my work is when I can help my team members to develop and surprise customers with better, unexpected solutions. I enjoy engaging with the community by public writing and speaking and at the moment, most of my evenings are spent preparing our HCM conference in London in May.

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  Sven at MIC

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  SAP ERP HCM Predictions from the experts

  • I love exploring the endless opportunities of London on my weekends, catching up with friends and travelling in the UK as well as abroad. I guess the closest thing to a hobby is History, which I love reading about or tracing its very steps in historical places.
  • Fun facts: As a student I used to earn some money as an equestrian instructor, which was a nice way of connecting what was my hobby back then with a job. Early in my first role as a SAP HR consultant, some senior colleagues asked me, why I had not pursued that equestrian career further and I said “I guess I thought I’d rather get a proper, respectable job” – at the time, I didn’t understand yet, why this answer made them split their sides laughing πŸ™‚

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  View in London

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  View in Genoa, Italy


What motivates you to share your expertise? And how do you find the time to contribute so actively on SCN?

  • I like engaging with others in the communities. I believe you can learn from questions just as much as from answers. I also feel that those lucky enough to have been at the right place at the right time and got a proper, well founded training have some responsibility to help avoid some of the worst of what’s happening out there. And I can only imagine from some questions, as well as answers, that some junior colleagues are really struggling in projects with no or little senior coaching.
  • Where do I find time? Good question. If you ever come a cross a large box of time sitting somewhere, let me know πŸ™‚


When did you become a member of SCN and which areas are you most active in?


You’ve written (and even been interviewed about by SAP Insider) about some of the ways on-premise resourcing models don’t work well for cloud projects. In that context, what advice would you give to up-and-coming SAP HCM consultants?
I guess for new consultants it’s not a problem to get into the cloud mindset from the start. However, they should make sure the company they start their career with does actually have the capabilities (and willingness) to work in a cloud model. Using full time resources and producing loads of change requests are strong indicators that they are not.

For experienced on-premise  consultants trying to switch, there are two important points to keep saying to yourself:

  • Your gut feeling does no longer apply for many things, because gut feeling is nothing more than the sum of experience from the past.  You need to challenge your most basic assumptions on how projects are run.
  • Accept that you are biased. The new model is taking revenue away from you. If it’s painful, it’s probably right for the customer.


I enjoyed reading about your love for London, and your volunteer work as a London Ambassador during the 2012 Olympics. Any hidden treasures in London that you would recommend to a tourist visit (that they might not hear about in a standard travel guide)?

  • A walk or bike ride along one of the canals is a perfect day out in Summer. You are likely to find hidden cafés, pubs or pop-up markets along the way.
  • Get lost somewhere off the usual streets or take a random bus and ride it to the final stop. We still discover the most amazing little gems that way.


Do you have any fun talents you’dlike to tell the community about? Jokes, songs, a dance?
I can pretend to be a Human Being. For 45 years, nobody has discovered that I’m actually a piece of ABAP code making me a clear winner of Alan Turing’s imitation game (aka Turing test). Sadly, I’m doing it so well, nobody believes me πŸ™


Is there an SCN member you admire (OK… you can name a few)? And for what reason?

  • First of all, I do admire the whole team of moderators. Whilst other contributors can cherry pick, they have to deal with a lot of non-fun stuff seem to take it with admirable composure.
  • Luke Marson and Jarret Pazahanick come to mind immediately. They write more high quality, up to date stuff than I can hope to read. Lukas Weigelt also deserves a mention here. He’s extremely knowledgable in Travel & Expense and has a great sense of humour.


Easy question: Mac/iOS or Windows? Or Android?
Mac/iOS – easy choice, but for work I use a Windows laptop as it integrates better with customers’ environments


Are you on Twitter?
Yep. @svenringling

Every month, a member of the SAP Community Network is recognized for exemplary behavior: sharing knowledge with peers, being helpful and taking on additional tasks to support community engagement. See the list of previousSCN Member of The Month Hall of Fame.

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      25 Comments
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      Author's profile photo J. Pazahanick
      J. Pazahanick

      Great choice and glad to see Sven recognized as member of the month.

      Author's profile photo Colleen Hebbert
      Colleen Hebbert

      Absolutely agree

      Another one of those cases where he gets announced and I'm surprised he hadn't been a Member of the Month already πŸ™‚

      Congrats Sven!

      Author's profile photo Christopher Solomon
      Christopher Solomon

      VERY deserving! Embodiment of "community spirit"....and a heckuva nice guy too! πŸ˜‰

      "gut feeling is nothing more than the sum of experience from the past"...nice!

      Author's profile photo Matt Fraser
      Matt Fraser

      Agreed, excellent choice, congratulations, Sven!

      Author's profile photo Loed Despuig
      Loed Despuig

      Congratz Sven for being the member of the month! πŸ™‚

      Regards,

      Loed

      Author's profile photo antoine foucault
      antoine foucault

      in line with the previous comments! congrats Caro.

      Author's profile photo Ravi Sankar Venna
      Ravi Sankar Venna

      Congrats Sven.

      Welcome to MoM club. Glad to know you are also from UK.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Congratulation! Sven.

      Author's profile photo Lukas Weigelt
      Lukas Weigelt

      Great choice and well deserved! Gratz!

      Also, thanks for the mention 😳

      Author's profile photo Otto Gold
      Otto Gold

      Congratulations, Sven! Certainly deserved!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Congratulations...........& Thanks for writing such knowledgeable books


      Kind regards,

      Farzana Mushtaq

      Author's profile photo Sven Ringling
      Sven Ringling

      Are those books still out there? Scary!
      Most of them should have been replaced by new editions written by my younger colleagues, who seem to like the idea of spending their evenings in hotel rooms with writing πŸ˜‰

      Author's profile photo Midhun VP
      Midhun VP

      Congrats Sven,

      Thanks for your contributions to SCN.

      Regards,

      Midhun VP

      Author's profile photo Sven Ringling
      Sven Ringling

      😳 Thanks a lot to all of you for your kind comments!
      Still not quite sure how I deserve this, but maybe it was time for an elderly chap from Britain for reasons of diversity πŸ˜›

      Will try to justify the choice - working on new contributions right now...

      Author's profile photo Jelena Perfiljeva
      Jelena Perfiljeva

      Great choice. Congratulations, Sven! Somehow it didn't come up in the interview but I'm sure everyone is dying to know the answer (and are just too polite to ask) - any relationship to Ringling brothers? πŸ™‚

      Author's profile photo Sven Ringling
      Sven Ringling

      LoL.There should have been a triple sommersault in the video, but it was edited out, because I couldn't get the landing 100% straight in the low hotel room.

      Indeed, they are remotely related. One of my uncles has done family research back in the days, when it involved dusty church archives and phone calls and their parents, who emigrated from the Hanover area in the 1800s are some 5 steps away from the root of our branch, who moved to the German-French border area a bit later. Actually, all Ringlings in the world can be traced back to the same family.

      Alas, not close enough to hope for any inheritance from the circus empire. The only benefit we get from their fame is that we don't have to spell our name in America (unlike the UK or, indeed, Germany)

      Author's profile photo Luke Marson
      Luke Marson

      I'm surprised Sven hasn't been MotM already! Very well deserved.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Congratulation! Sven Ringling

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Congratulation Sven, you may well deserve it. Nobody can take it this honour away from you.Continue your good work.Take care.

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      Congratulations Sven. Great to know about you, personally too...as of now, we knew you professionally as a very knowledgeable SAP HCM Consultant. And, yes, thanks for sharing your knowledge through blogs and replying on issues on SCN.

      Author's profile photo Marssel VilaΓ§a
      Marssel VilaΓ§a

      It was a nice reading!

      you can learn from questions just as much as from answers. Fully Agree! πŸ™‚


      Congratulations! πŸ˜‰

      Author's profile photo Sven Ringling
      Sven Ringling

      Thank you!

      Author's profile photo Former Member
      Former Member

      As a HR consultant from China.Glad to see you on the SCN.

      Hope you can share  some advises  about SAP HR or Successfactors. Thanks in advance!

      Author's profile photo Sven Ringling
      Sven Ringling

      Thanks Jason. I'll do my best πŸ™‚

      Currently very busy preparing my SAP HCM and cloud sessions for iProConference in London in May. Hope to find more time for blogging after that πŸ™‚

      Author's profile photo Uday Kumar Kanike
      Uday Kumar Kanike

      Congrats..!!