Intend to switch from 19 years of career in sales to be a SAP SD functional consultant

[former_member612275]

I am in my early 40s, based out of Bengaluru and have got 19 years of experience in sales / business development domain. I intend to switch and pursue my career further to be a SAP SD functional consultant. Being an MBA with a major in Marketing & IT with B.Sc. in Computers, had never worked for IT industry. I want to ask, is it professionally satisfactory and financially rewarding, if I intend to switch now? If yes, how should I take it forward. I turn to the SAP community, to extend their support to me, by advising their candid response....please.

[fim]

Career change is always possible, however, it requires careful planning and effort. Moving from a business to an IT role is sometimes perceived as impossible but in reality it's not.

But before you do, make sure you're targeting the latest solutions related to your area of expertise. Since you're working in Sales, learning "Hybris" would be a better choice than the SD as the Solution supports the most up-to-date processes (such as marketing, sales, commerce, services) and is being considered by many of the existing SAP Customers.

Choosing to learn the latest solution is also beneficial for a reason that there's less competition and you can have relatively easy entry into its job market.

Here's a possible scenario through which you can make your move smooth and successful.

1. Sign up at open.sap.com and enroll yourself at the courses. These are completely free of cost. 3 years ago I attended the Experience SAP Hybris Solutions and found it be a very good overview of the tool. There are plenty of other courses as well which you can take to learn more about the SAP products.
2. If you feel it's something which matches your aspirations, you can further invest in formal training. The best source, I have experienced and can recommend, is SAP Learning Hub. It's a subscription-based online library of SAP Courses.
3. Develop your knowledge and if your organization, current or future, implements it, while still working within Sales/Business, you can serve as a Super User, for having good-enough knowledge of the SD/CRM/Hybris Solutions.
4. After building solid experience of supporting businesses with SAP Solutions, you can possibly move to the Technical Support role within the IT department of your organization.
5. The next role you could target is to work for SAP Implementation Partners and serve as Functional Consultant.

In terms of Financial Rewards, it's similar to other professions where more effort and higher skills have better potential to land better jobs.

[Lakshmipathi]

is it professionally satisfactory and financially rewarding,

For your first question (professionally satisfactory), I can say confidently YES (I also came with 12+ years in domain industry when I came into SAP world) but for the other question (financially rewarding), my answer is NO. As for as IT industry are concerned, you would be treated as a Fresher and so would be your package.

I have seen many youngsters entered into SAP world who were working as SAP end users and they were finding it very difficult to survive in the market as Consulting is entirely a different challenge. Why I am highlighting here is that though they have worked already in SAP systems, when it comes to consulting, you also need to know at least the configuration at basic level. On top of this, in any Business, they would use only minimal standard transactions and predominantly, the process would run in a customized environment. Having said that, even end users would not be well equipped to manage the show as a functional consultant. I am not sure, whether you have worked with some basic process or not.