Today I’m working as a SAP VMS consultant (Vehicle Management System) in the areas related to Industry specific Automotive Solution. Currently I have 6 years of SAP Functional experience, I’ve seen the market trend and became part of the flow.
Now when I look back my entire journey as a professional Starting from the Domain experience to switching over to SAP and ask myself what made me became that I’m today is it what I planned for or the time and situation around me made me?
I believe my life experience with SAP can be useful to SAP Aspirants and the working SAP Consultants.
During my studies from a university in India, we used to learn about ERP Application Software, using which all resources of one organisation can be managed and this will help the organisation to utilize the available resources at optimum level. Even our faculty used to teach us about various famous ERPs –
Naming few here:
- Oracle
- SAP
- PeopleSoft
- JD Edward
- Baan etc.
During those days these were like very big terminologies for me, our faculty used to tell us those who really good in Business knowledge can look for better career opportunity with any of these ERP. The Faculty also told us that SAP was the fastest growing ERP in the global market.
Immediately after completing my education I started working in a company as Business development executive. (Sales and Marketing)
That was the 1st time when my learned concept was getting utilized and I knew various process mainly- Inquiry, Quotation, Invoicing, Returns, customer Credit note and Debit note and understood how these are actually functions in real world. I also worked on various periodic reports like – Sales report, Inventory reports and was presenting these product wise reports for my region. This made me understand that these are mandatory for every organisation to plan produce/purchase and grow.
Then joined SAP coaching/training center in Hyderabad, India along with Certification course. During my certification I understood that SAP Certification is only for Concept knowledge actually there is very less training on Actual system setup which would help for project. I was lucky to get a fantastic faculty in the coaching center who taught Actual configuration with field by field explanation and system designing using IDES system.
Earlier my belief was, after SAP certification SAP will take care of arranging Interviews for Certified consultants and in the process will get job with any of the implementation partner. But Actually that was not the case, so SAP Aspirants please note that SAP is not going to help you for job. They are there only to give Concept knowledge during certification.
I was lucky enough that during those days there were few companies looking for SAP Certified fresher. They used to arrange walk-ins during weekends and pick up candidates from there. I also uploaded my profile in various Jobs sites like Monster, Naukri, even in SAP career site but all my effort went in vein. Actually there was no requirement posted for fresher in these job sites. Now situation would be even worse for the new fresher. There should be some platform for fresher to start the SAP career.
I request you guys to share the link if you aware about any such sites that helps SAP Fresher, I’m sure that’s going to help a big number of people. This is big huddle for the upcoming guys in the SAP market.
Mainly the guys those who don’t get opportunity as fresher they might end up ruining their own career.
Even today my near and dear ask me to advice how to get into SAP career, actually I don’t know what to advise them…whether it’s good for them or they should continue the same job that they are doing.
After joining my 1st company in SAP, I got selected in client round and was placed as an internal consultant for their implementation. During this interview whatever taught in Coaching center helped a lot. There I got the opportunity to work and learn more configuration as well as the Business during the requirement workshop discussion. I used to work in the IDES system after working hours whatever we discussed during the discussion based on my understanding. I would really thank to my senior colleagues, lead and manager to keep motivating me and worked as a guide. Big thank to all of them from core of my heart.
Later I moved to project team and I also kept that spirit of extending help to junior colleague in my project, helping them understanding the requirement and guiding in system designing. I request all senior guys please help the new comer helping and motivating is really good. It cost nothing and that gives a lot of happiness and tremendous confident to excel further. This attitude helps us grow as one individual and makes us more mature as a person.
We as a consultant always advice business users to accept changes in the new SAP system, the business user finds it tough but even we’re not open to take up new concept. If there is any such requirement in our project, we generally try not to take it and try to play Safe. Similar situation came to my project team also as a requirement for IS Auto VMS (Vehicle Management System), during those days we had no one in our organisation who was exposed to VMS.
My Project leader was the person who motivated me to learn new VMS concepts and pushed me to work on VMS. The only help I got was the help.sap.com, using that I put my full effort to learn the basic concept and started designing the system. Slowly all pending work related to VMS assigned to me and I stared working. Now I can tell that it was one of the game changer for me. I worked like a crazy person during those 3 years and learned both SAP SD and IS Auto VMS. Later on I became the only VMS consultant in my company.
One change I noticed, I struggled a lot during those days but because of that I used to get very good appraisal ever year. Around 20-30% increment every year, whereas average 10% was very rare for my other colleagues. Finally, all my hard work paid off.
So I suggest guys, please be aware of the fact that the advance Module (may be any of Industry solution) going to help in terms of personal and professional growth. But yes it’ll come with additional responsibility.
Though I was a SAP SD certified consultant acceptance to new module helped me to become IS Auto VMS consultant and currently working as VMS Consultant, SD module is always helping me.
If I try to think forward I wonder what is going to happen in future, I have no idea whether the current trend will continue or other advance concepts will take over?
I believe this blog proves to be useful for Working SAP Functional Consultants and SAP Aspirants. I would love to see your valuable feedback, suggestion and guidance on this blog.
May God Bless You All
All the Best
Cheers,
Hemanta Kumar
