Career shift guidance from SAP Technical to Data Science

[Sijin_Chandran]

Hello Gurus,

I am a SAP Technical with 10+ years of experience and since all these years my job was always surrounded with all kind of Enterprise related Data, I would like to harness my existing knowhow of SAP as an ERP and move towards Data Science direction. One of my colleague who joined the current firm where I am working along with me is a Data Scientist and working for a major FMCG client and the Data which these people are working upon comes mainly from the SAP SD side only. So, these all instances made me think on this direction.

So my questions:

1. Has anyone got any luck in making such shift and if yes would you like to share your experience so that it would be helpful for people like me.

2. As a foundation for this shift I have enrolled for a related course in one of the major online platforms which guides on the basic concepts like Mathematics, Statistics etc needed for this field. And once this is done I am planning for 4 months course provided by various Universities in India which provide placement assistance as well. Has anyone tried like this ?

In the nutshell I want to know whether the decision I am making is a plausible one or not.

Thanks,

Sijin

[TammyPowlas]

I am not a data scientist; I am a business analyst but use data everyday like yourself. On question one, I do recommend some SAP courses in the data science area - these are free at open.sap.com or https://open.sap.com/courses?q=data%20science and see if data science really interests you

I think a good foundation outside of SAP is to start too with the data analyst courses offered by Google. They provide a good formal education data foundation.

On question 2, learning more about math and statistics can't hurt.

[Sijin_Chandran]

Hi Tammy,

First very thanks for providing an insight from your side on this.

Regarding the foundation which you said instead of Google I am actually following one with Udemy and found the same really structured and also it has got good ratings from quite a vast number of people.

I would definitely give a try to the OpenSAP course you suggested and yes Data Science with the limited understanding I have interests me. And I feel it has got good scope for some of the Planning procedures in SAP like ATP(Available to Promise), MRP etc.

Actually my colleague was working on the section which decides what promos to launch for a particular product based on the SAP Sales data.

Thanks,

Sijin

[sanilbhandari]

Hi

I would think it would be a good move. There is a learning journey as well available.

https://help.sap.com/learning-journeys/500bf64a7a26101495059c3e28adb9fe

The changes in various industries such as CPG, Retail and Manufacturing are so rapid and increasing data volumes that a meaningful analysis does need an expertise like data scientist. With adaption of IoT, blockchain will only add to data volumes much more.

The profile you are aiming for should be in demand sooner than later, especially one with an idea of enterprise data.

Regards

Sanil

[Sijin_Chandran]

Hi Sanil,

First very thanks for your time and putting your views on this point. I must say with the responses I have got till now on this thread my below doubt is getting clearer bit by bit and I am almost decided for going ahead on this.

In the nutshell I want to know whether the decision I am making is a plausible one or not.

Still it would be really helpful if someone shares his/her story who has really made this transition from SAP Technical(ABAP) to Data Science field.

What I am aiming for is to first understand or rather say get acquainted with the actual Data Science methodologies i.e. Non-SAP based.And then come back to my field i.e. SAP 🙂 and deep dive into the Data Science provisions which SAP is providing. What I have understood till now is that SAP provides pre-built provisions for Data Science and majority things are automated.

And the first step what I have taken for the above is that I have enrolled for an online self-paced course for Data Science and once that is completed I will try to make the next move by enrolling for a Instructor based coaching which I observed that there are lot of institutes nearby to where I am staying.

I really wish I could scroll back to this thread after a tenure of time being a Data Scientist + SAP Technical resource 🙂

Thanks,

Sijin

[former_member826383]

Hi sijin,

I am a sap technical consultant. I am a beginner with 2years experience . I am also planning on data science course and then to continue related to sap. Can you help me in what was your decision and how should I proceed?

[former_member824168]

sijin.chandran Hi Sijin, I also happen to be on the same thought process as you were. I have 9+ year experience in SAP Technical(ABAP & data migration) and planning a career shift to data science. I would really like to know about your experience in this shift. Looking forward to your reply.