Career Corner Discussions
Join the conversation in the Career Corner group to ask career-related questions, find approaches to building skills, and seek career advancements.
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Passionate SAP fresher looking for advice on personal development.

Former Member
0 Kudos
317

Hello SCN!

I recently decided to pick a SAP carrier path, thus I am new to this forum. I think you’re doing a great job here; the amount of support you give to the community is outstanding.

I am fairly new to SAP, I’ve been working on this system for a bit over a year (I work in a distribution depot in a big UK company). From a total fresher I managed to build a very strong position, I am now second in command when it comes to SAP, the first person being a veteran with more than 10 years experience.

Currently we are undergoing a SAP upgrade, and I am the person responsible for training of staff (around 10 people, different roles in the depot) in the new environment, both creating position specific training materials and doing 1 on 1 practical exercises.

I don’t have a technical background, I finished a 5 year university, I am a qualified physical education teacher, yet I am very fast when it comes to computer software. I learn quickly and get the understanding of the process unusually fast (comparing to other employees).

I am very keen to learn; whenever I encounter some aspect I don’t understand, I query it either with my trainer or with the SAP support if the answer is beyond local reach.

I am also responsible for solving day to day issues and I am the person that doubles checks and clears housekeeping if any issues arise.

To be more technical I have an end user experience with SAP NetWeaver portal and MM, SD, LE and PM modules (those looks the closest to what I do). I mostly process customers’ orders, take care of the stock in the depot, handle inbound and outbound deliveries and deal with returned deliveries.

At the end of the day I am just an end user that does more than he has in his job description. But I think that’s a great start and a great opportunity to develop and start a serious carrier.

So that’s my experience, now a few words about my future.

I think the best way to draw my carrier path would be to set an ultimate aim, milestones and checkpoints. The idea is to first specify the direction and after that, think about the way I’m going to get there.

And this is the point where I need help, now that you know my background, hopefully you will be able to point out the direction that I should go for and add more details to my idea:

As for the ultimate aim: Top notch job as a SAP specialist (implementing systems, delivering training, end user support, etc.)

Milestones: Certification, getting invited to first interviews

Checkpoints: Doing on-line tests / answering test interview questions etc.

I am really excited to step into this community. Questions and any kind suggestions are more than welcome.

Kind regards,

Marcin

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

former_member184701
Active Contributor
0 Kudos
261

Mate, everything is up to you.

The greater plan, the more achievement.

Touch technical and functional things, even certification, but make sure your target is clear for you. Say, who you are in 2015 , for example, SAP trainer or developer…or FICO consultant...  How do you see your career?

Good luck

5 REPLIES 5

former_member184701
Active Contributor
0 Kudos
262

Mate, everything is up to you.

The greater plan, the more achievement.

Touch technical and functional things, even certification, but make sure your target is clear for you. Say, who you are in 2015 , for example, SAP trainer or developer…or FICO consultant...  How do you see your career?

Good luck

0 Kudos
261

"The greater plan, the more achievement"

Well that's something I like!

Thanks for the kind word. It will be really hard to do some technical stuff with my experience but I will surely go deeply into functional modules. I feel really confident with SAP, now the 'only' thing that I need to do is to gain knowledge and focus on the project I'm on to gain as much experience as possible.

Marcin

vinod_vemuru2
Active Contributor
0 Kudos
261

Hello Marcin,

Warm welcome to SAP family

Choosing SAP as career path is very good decision.

From your back ground, I would suggest you to move to either SD or MM module. But, you have to take ultimate decision on which module you want to start with based on your interest. I have seen many end users who worked in core companies and then moved on to functional consultants. They always have additional advantage of having industry/domain experience compared to people who directly started their SAP career. When it comes to understanding the business requirements also, they would pick it fast.

Locked has already knocked your door in the form of upgrade. So, complete this project, get some experience and then you can plan to move on.

Prepare for SAP certification and complete. This would be an added advantage. There is no job guaranty only based on certification.  But, having domain experience + certification gives you an edge over others when it comes to interviews.

Hope this helps you to decide further.

All the best

Thanks,

Vinod.

0 Kudos
261

Hey Vinod,

Thanks for the tips. I did some research and I've noticed that FICO specialists are desirable on the market. I think either that or SD is the way to go for me..

I also need a bit of guidance when it comes to first steps. All the SAP I know is pretty much from my work. Should I focus on gaining theoretical knowledge and try to do some bits and pieces on the live system that's available to me?

The amount of information about SAP is ENORMOUS. If someone gave me a bit of advice about the first step or two that I should take I would be most grateful.

Kind regards,

Marcin

0 Kudos
261

Hello Marcin,

FICO is always a demanding module due to the complexity and less number of consultants.

SD also has good demand with high number of consultants available.

Read through documents available with you. SCN itself has thousands of good documents.

If you have live system availability, it good to go through the customization at least and understand how your business flow is configured in SAP (If doing changes are not possible). If you have sandbox system for doing R&D, go and play around with config, execute business scenarios in SAP and see how it is impacting. Once that is done, configuring things in SAP is nothing. If you get some issues, SCN is always there to help

Thanks,

Vinod.