Recently I have taken part on a C4C Project, one of the first ones in South America region and I have been going through different status that I’d like to share with you as well as some advices that would have saved me a lot of time and, that I hope will help you to speed up your ramp-up into C4C when working as a consultant.
Let me first share with you a brief description of my SAP related background; I have been working with SAP CRM for over 10 years as techno-functional consultant, technical leader and, CRM Trainer. Over a year ago, as I was seeing that SAP CRM consulting demands where decreasing in some regions of the world, I had to decide whether to pivot and change (by moving to another area) or to persevere (by keeping my eyes on CRM related areas and learning new technologies). Today I am sure I have chosen the right path! And even better, I am seeing that SAP CRM demand has risen again!
In my personal experience, I have had the chance of taking C4C trainings but, as we all know, participating on courses is not the same as having hands on experience and facing specific issues but, it is a very good starting point.
In comparison to the moment where I started working with SAP CRM technical side in 2005, there was not much public information being shared by SAP. Nowadays, SAP seems to have changed its strategy as we have several places from where we can gain a lot of knowledge. I personally first started with SAP Cloud for Customer YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/SAPCustomerOD/videos) and then, jumped into SDN C4C Space (). Afterwards, I also took advantage of Marketplace documentation (http://service.sap.com/cloud4customer).
For those who want technical insights, it also has very valuable documentation the SAP Cloud Application Studio site (http://help.sap.com/studio_cloud). Also, there is an openSAP course for SAP ByDesign (https://open.sap.com/courses/byd1).
However, the most relevant knowledge was provided by the networking generated through SDN C4C Space where I had the chance of meeting new consultants around the globe who have really helped me when I was under complex situations and when I was not facing further alternatives.
Some of the biggest challenges I faced where when trying to leverage connection from ERP to C4C through PO as the guide had some inconsistencies which were taken care by SAP colleagues (after raising an Incident). These issues forced me to deeply research and learn to use new C4C and ERP tools. Also, they made me learn things which are not written (and that I am trying to share on several SDN documents). As a friend of mine says, “the best knowledge is gained while suffering”. I am trying to change this phrase by “the best knowledge is gained by accessing SDN C4C space”, hope I can help with it!
From my personal and humble point of view, there are some things that seem to be “still a bit green” but SAP is demonstrating, day after day, that their commitment for improving tis is huge and that they are already adding existing OnPremise (traditional SAP CRM) tools and processes into OnDemand (C4C) system. I have personally seen this, after having worked with several C4C releases, after having been in touch with SAP Product responsible and, after having received help from several SAP SMEs while solving open incidents. Also, you can understand this by checking the news for future releases where they improve existing functionalities and, also, add some others which were still not present. I strongly believe that this is going straight forward and that this is the right path! Meanwhile, while not getting specific functionalities on the standard, this is good for us as where are being forced to explode our creativity in order to solve issues on alternative ways; always adjusting system to customer needs and not the other way!
Finally, feel free to mention me on your SDN queries so I can try helping you. I received plenty of help while ramping up and, for sure, I am open to provide the same (and more) to others!
