When did you take your first official SAP training class?

[Former Member]

This question is an add-on to How did you get your start in SAP?  We've collected a lot of stories about how folks ended up in SAP. Now I'm curious as to whether folks generally paid for their own training or had training supplied by a company.  How did you get your training? Please give your answer as a comment or follow this link, Poll: When did you take your first official SAP training class?, to enter your answer in a poll format.

For me, I was hired by SAP America and got sent to thirteen (13!) weeks of bootcamp. What's your story?

Best regards,

  --Tom

[gagandeep_batra]

Hi Thomas

I was hired by IGATEPATNI  and got trainning first for abap 3 week. and then i got tranning for SAP-PI for one month.

Then also i got trg for SAP-CRM . but now working on SAP-PI

Regards

Gagandeep

[former_member182098]

Tom,

I spent around £ 40,000 (Forty Thousand Sterling Pounds !!!!) for SAP Trainings, Certification, Education, Books, Library etc. out of my own pocket. Looks little crazy 🙂

You are so lucky mate.

Getting trainings from companies has become a dream

Please give me a list of generous companies who provide list of training to employees

Regards,

Ravi

[Former Member]

Hi,

are you a contractor? because otherwise I'd find very risky to invest in such stuff (sap training costs are quite amazing for self-studing people)

[former_member182098]

There is nothing like Risk. It is only the perception of the individual.

Unfortunately, I am not a Contractor yet

[Former Member]

Hi Ravi,

It has been my observation that most folks are trained by their companies or at least don't invest in training until after they have a job doing SAP work, but that is why I started this poll. My analysis of How did you get your start in SAP? seemed to confirm my earlier observation, but since it wasn't explicitly part of the previous question, I thought I'd ask more directly. Still too early to tell in the poll, but trends are towards get the job first, then train. My goal by asking these questions is to map out the most efficient and cost effective path for anyone interested in a career in SAP: student, recent graduate, or mid career switcher. Hopefully we'll get enough responses to get a good feel for best/most common approaches!

In looking at your profile, it looks like you've been doing SAP work for a while, so when you say you're not a contractor yet, do you mean that you work directly for a customer or that you are a consultant, not a contractor? Also, because I really want to understand, you have invested a lot into your own education, but was this before you got a job doing SAP work or after?

Thanks for participating!

Best regards,

  --Tom

[former_member182098]

Hi Tom,

I have spent this amount some of the amount before coming into consulting career, remaining (substantial) amount after coming to SAP consulting career.

Nowadays companies are only preferring for internal type of trainings. No company is sending the consultants for costly SAP training, unless there is a definite opportunity for business. Except few professionally managed companies, most of the companies have limited budget on SAP trainings due to shaken economy. I would much prefer to spend my own money rather than making unsuccessful requests with the company.

I am a permanent employee who works for a consulting company in SAP Arena. I am not a contractor, who usually independent and bills on a daily basis in UK (unlike hourly in US)

Best Regards,

Ravi

[Former Member]

I wonder if this is a United States vs. UK difference or just a company by company difference. All Tier 1 consulting firms I know of in the US invest annually in their employee's training (not always SAP training, however). Most tier 2 and tier 3 consulting companies do as well. Almost every customer I've worked with in the US had some form of tuition reimbursement plan in place which requires a little more initiative on the individual's part, but in the end does cover a limited amount of training cost yearly.

I'm sure there are exceptions to everything I've stated above in the US, but it's definitely been my experience that companies will pay for training if the employee can justify the business case. I've been involved in more than half a dozen end to end projects and in every case the existing employees that I've been responsible to train have been sent to at least 1 of the official SAP training classes at company expense, often more. I think at one or two of the customers, folks who joined the project after the initial training wave had to rely on direct mentoring more or go through the tuition reimbursement process.

I think my next poll will ask... Does your company offer some kind of yearly training allotment and/or tuition reimbursement? I'll get you that list of companies yet!

Best regards,

  --Tom

[former_member182098]

It looks companies in US are much generous

It is definitely company to company. In my experience 90% may be more companies have limited training budgets (sufficient for tea and coffee ). Particularly the companies are more and more conscious in spending the amount on training, unless if there is a clear crystal business case. In most of the cases, the consultants are encouraged to learn on their own. If there are any hyper active consultants (like me LOL) will anyway go on their own money to see taste of the new technology. In your previous mail the word "initiative" give me a laugh.

In my word initiative means morning to evening following up and requesting number of people. Unfortunately, I have very limited patience and time to request for keep on requesting a training. There are number of internal trainings which are SAP and non-SAP, I would call them as useless, either they are 4.0 materials : or generic stuff, which are not at all useful in anyway.

Training to consultants is real income generation for the companies, but one of most neglected area.

I have just asked for company names as a humour question. You may please ignore.

Best Regards,

Ravi

[Former Member]

Hello , I guess it depends of the company and the country , I  been working for HP  and when I ask for training , my boss say : " training ? You don't need training learn in the field is the best way"  of course I disagree , so Im saving to pay my own training and the go somewhere else 😉

[former_member182098]

It looks we are in the same boat

[Former Member]

Hi,

i worked as IT consultant for a non SAP program for 4y and the "learn in the field" approch was the same:-)

[Former Member]

Yes this a pretty common practice for companies nowadays , specially consulting firms , it really sucks because sometimes I m not sure if I make enough money  to support a constant training , for example now we maybe need to learn HANA , I don't how I'm going to pay  it :s

[Former Member]

What about when you first started doing SAP work? Who paid for your SAP training and was it before or after you had an SAP related job? -td

[Former Member]

What about your SAP training? Did you receive any formal SAP training and was it before or after you had a job doing something SAP related? -td

[Former Member]

Before SAP,  I had some programming  experience , I friend told me hey come to my company  we are looking for programmers , in my first day I googled for some manuals I remember one manual called "learn how to program in Abap in 60 days" or something like that, and voila ! , it is true most of my colleagues explained me a lot of things and with the help of scn things have ran pretty well I guess .

[Former Member]

Hi Thomas,

I was IT consultant in quality management; I switched to internal consultant (I work for a manifacturing group) in FI/CO and than SD/CRM (now going for EH&S) :-).

My company was searching someone in my geo area (I'm from a medium italian town) with good IT skills so they accepted

to hire me and to train me. It's been partial train on the job and deep use of SAP official material (books, help, forum, ecc).

Luckly I was very effective on "learn on the job" and so I hadn't particular problems to pick up SAP and show abilities (that's why

I was entrusted to different projects, also with international exposure).

[Former Member]

My hat is off to you! SAP is wide and deep and your ability to navigate those SAP waters solo is admirable! Please don't forget to also follow the link,

Poll: When did you take your first official SAP training class?, in order to log your experience in the poll so we can get some good statistics! -td

[former_member807106]

i am going to planning for SAP FICO certification so my question is right now which one is best ECC or S/4 HANA ?

[Former Member]

Hi Thomas,

I had the opportunity to join a company at a stage when the management was deciding to implement SAP (they had already implemented HCM & Payroll) in all the other divisions (PP, MM, SD, PM, QM, CS, PS, FICO). So that's how I took my first baby steps in SAP. And I'm glad I got the opportunity.. There's so much to learn..

[Former Member]

I'm always happy to hear a story like yours. You were at the right place at the right time, but more importantly you've seized the opportunity and continue to improve yourself and your company! Please don't forget to also log your training approach to the poll at Poll: When did you take your first official SAP training class? so we can get some good statistics! Thank you for contributing! -td

[Former Member]

Hi Thomas,

I was hired by Wipro Technologies, and got corporate training on SAP-ABAP for 4 weeks and SAP-PI for 3 weeks. Now working on PI.

Regards,

Vijay Reddy

[Former Member]

Kudos to Wipro for finding you and making the investment in you and your mutual success! Please don't forget to follow the link to log your training into the poll so we can get some good statistics!

Poll: When did you take your first official SAP training class?