success in SAP SD – essentials: business process

The most important skill for an SAP SD professional (at any stage of his/her career) is business process knowledge and understanding!

Without this you cannot succeed! You can survive but you cannot succeed.

To get better at it you need study, practice and experience.Daily exercise and focus on standard SD business processes.

I will use success in interviews – part 2: Essentials

to structure this blog.

There are 3 essentials:

1. What is most important?

2. Clarity

3. Review afterwards

1. What is most important?

Business process reading, everyday and at the start of the day.

The first thing of every day, spend around 1 to 2 hours studying the SAP SD standard business processes. Recommended sources are SAP training material pdfs TSCM60, TSCM62 and Glynn C Williams. Key is to not try something “difficult or complicated”, just study the standard SD processes (OTC, Returns, Cash sale, Rush order etc. etc.)

At the start of the day your mind is fresh, therefore you need to do this activity at that time.

There are few goals to be achieved sequentially, while studying standard SD processes:

a) read to understand

– what is happening, at a high level – goods movement, money movement?

– is my understanding of a process clear?

Once a is accomplished to a reasonable degree, then go for b

b) read to memorize

– there is so much benefit if you remember the document types, the movement types, the pricing condition types etc.

In interviews with the explanation of a process or sub-process, you can inform the related objects in standard SD. This will impress your interviewer

Be wise about where to use this technical jargon. In discussions with business users don’t use any SAP technical jargon

Once a and b are accomplished to a reasonable degree, then go for c

c) read to compare and co-relate processes and objects

– with this you present your maturity and depth to the interviews or your project manager

For example, requirements are used in pricing, output, revenue account determination. Give an answer, reply that combines several functionalities.

After few months, you can add (studying) the business processes of your clients/company but remember to continue studying SD standard processes.

Free of Charge FOC, this process is used to give free samples to customers

Free of charge sales for configurable material

what is the process when the customer is not happy? the customer is complaining?

VF11 cancel a lot of invoices

billing document cancellation reason

2. Clarity

Clarity, clarity and more clarity…

You need to be clear what type of mental skill do you want to develop, by studying SD standard processes.

a) Process oriented thinking or think step-by-step

In every question, in interviews or at work; you think step-by-step

For example –

Delivery created > Picking completed > PGI completed

This way you would be clearer to your interviewer or client, you will understand and be well understood.

b) (Think on your feet) Building a process

Interviewers – recruitment or in company – frequently ask, setup of new processes

For example –

What would be needed to setup a new plant in SAP?

What would be needed to setup an inbound interface to create sales orders automatically in SAP?

****BEGIN: some good points from the previous version, might be helpful*****

– How is each process (process step) different from another process (process step)?

– What role do each object play? for example movement type – what is this for?

– Business understanding of the organizational units (sales organization, distribution channel, division, sales office etc.)

you should be able to explain these things clearly with relevant business examples

business understanding of organizational elements –

how to setup my products? what is the business meaning of division? how to implement division for a client?

What could be the best way to create product brands under one company code?

what does a sales office do? how is it different from sales organization?

Multiple Sales Offices for a single Customer

****END: some good points from the previous version, might be helpful*****

3. Review afterwards

Constant and purposeful reviewing daily

– How was my performance?

– Was my business process understanding at a good level? What do I need to work on?

SAP ERP Sales and Distribution (SAP SD) read and participate in threads related to business process. and make your functional mind more flexible and powerful.

Read, think about a thread for a week (or two) – think about an issue for a number of days, co-relate it with your company process, test in IDES. Don’t worry about points etc. when participating intensely in a thread, the benefit is that you will “own” a concept and that will help you in your career growth.

always ask, could I have explained this better? more clearly? with some interesting business examples?

It is a journey where you will get bored, tired, disinterested, excited, receive praise, get criticism…but most important is to put in the study…everyday…without fail and without expectations.

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