“I’m a certified SuccessFactors consultant! I don’t need SAP Learning Hub”.

To become certified, you went through a lot of learning – either classroom, or on projects, or a combination of both.

Your certification was an investment in time, and money.

You can wear your certification proudly; employers or customers can use it to recognize your experience and knowledge.

But cloud products, like SuccessFactors, go through faster release cycles than ERP products, by the very nature of being in the cloud. SuccessFactors releases additional functionality and enhancements every three months. And digitally transformative solutions like S/4HANA are bringing major releases at a pace far faster than the industry has seen before. SAP makes the latest info available in SAP Learning Hub first. The new delta training for SuccessFactors is a great example of this – along with the Early Knowledge Transfer information that comes to SAP Learning Hub first.  In that context, it’s really important to you, to your customers and to SAP that you keep completely up to date.

It’s important to you because:

• New features may help you configure a better business outcome for your customers.
• Being up to date means you know the new capabilities, and can position yourself and your customers’ solutions with full regard to the “latest and greatest”.
• Nobody likes being left behind… not having the latest training and information means you could be “caught out” not knowing there was a better/faster/easier way to achieve an outcome.

It’s important to your customers’ because:

• They rely on you to have the best solution for their business goals.
• They need to evaluate which consultants and firms to engage.
• They rely on SAP to be monitoring and equipping the market to ensure the solutions are leveraged to their full capability.
• Up to date consultants equal successful and timely projects, and give your customers’ their Return on Investment.

It’s important to SAP because:

• Well implemented projects give SAP customers the return on investment they seek, and help them reach their desired business outcomes.
• Poorly implemented projects reflect on its products, as much as the implementers’ reputations.
• Customers expect SAP to proactively ensure the consulting resources in the ecosystem are up to date, and that there is a way to validate the level of knowledge. Hence SAPs decade’s long commitment to Education and Certification.

“So just send me the release notes”

SAP is committed to user adoption in our customer base, and to enablement of customers and implementers in our ecosystem. Merely sending out information won’t ensure we meet our customers’ expectations for an equipped ecosystem. Using SAP Learning Hub means we are equipping you with the information in Early Knowledge Transfer, Delta Training, Handbook or eLearning format. Along with the Learning Rooms in Learning Hub and the optional SAP Live Access systems, you can learn, collaborate and apply the knowledge. This is a proven approach to knowledge transfer. SAP Learning Hub gives SAP the ability to monitor and articulate the level of readiness in the consultant market. SAP is seeing a skill shortage, and is proactively moving to build and maintain knowledge in the ecosystem. SAP Learning Hub is THE platform SAP is using to address the skill requirements in the market. By using SAP’s cloud solutions including SuccessFactors Learning, SAP JAM, and Live Access, SAP Learning Hub is leveraging the cloud to deliver a whole lot more, a lot more flexibly.

“Learning Hub is too expensive”

When SAP is positioning Learning Hub with corporate customers, the value calculator is used to show the hard costs and soft costs that SAP Learning Hub takes out of the organisation. Think about this at an individual level. Even an individual consultant needs to keep their skills up to date. Given that only SAP has and provides the latest info to the market, fastest, there is no room for reliance on “grey” or “black” market knowledge transfer. Even if you only attended one course a year to stay up to date, you have the course cost, the billable days forgone, and the travel costs. Add to this the forgone income, if you are no longer current and customer’s can’t contract you to successfully execute their projects and configurations. All businesses need to invest in training. Some don’t have an explicit training budget per se. But the individual consultant who does not invest in their skills will be left behind in the Digital Transformation that is sweeping through all customers’ industries.

“I only need the SuccessFactors content”

SAP Learning Hub provides the content, and also the collaboration tools. Just like the business leaders who hire you, you need to be across the latest information. Whether you configure a module, or advise on business strategy, the SuccessFactors knowledge you use is used in a broader context of technology, and digital transformation. Access to all the SAP materials gives you a fantastic reference tool when planning and executing projects for your customers.

SAP does provide individual classroom courses when you need face to face interaction. But as an SAP Learning Hub subscriber, you want access to information about all the SAP solutions that you come across in your employment, or your customers’ environments. A one-stop-shop of content is provided to facilitate free exploration, and skill broadening.

posted on behalf of Jason Willis, SAP Learning Hub, SAP Education Asia Pacific Japan

by Lejla Seperovic, Head of Business Development, SAP Education Asia Pacific Japan