How to transform yourself from a fresher to an expert SAP Consultant?

[former_member182098]

You cannot transform yourself from a fresher to an expert SAP Consultant in overnight. It needs lot of commitment, dedication, sacrifice, effort, expertise and ability to become a reliable SAP Consultant. Unfortunately, there is no short cut to achieve this. Many people are of the opinion that the SAP Certification would bridge this gap however, in fact, it is not. SAP Certification would probably give you a better marketability, however, it does not make you complete SAP Consultant. For that matter, none of the Certifications in the market can you make you an expert consultant . Many people have asked me that they are interested in SAP and wanted to know how to become a good SAP Consultant? Unfortunately, there is no short cut to become an expert SAP Consultant. There could be some people who followed short cut methods to become SAP Consultants, however, unfortunately, those consultants are only paper consultants. SAP Consultant jobs are lucrative, at the same time, they are mixed with hard work, lot of sacrifices, enormous amount of reading and flexibility to adopt new situations. Those consultants who have the real passion can only become the recognized consultants, remaining all become just workers working for salary. Your reputation lies in your hands by helping the people across the borders. You need to stretch yourself to level of helping people with selflessness and give them the real guidance possible.

There are number of qualities that are required to become a successful SAP Consultant. good education, business process knowledge, good configuration skills, communication, team playing,  understanding the business needs, quality documentation, reading ability, sharing knowledge and many more. A certification cannot make you a successful consultant in a day, however, it would help you in your life long career journey. Nothing can replace your hard work. To become a great SAP consultant is a long term process, learning new points on a daily basis and constructing a palace of knowledge over a period is key to your success. The way SAP is coming up with new technologies, it is always difficult for the consultants to maintain that pace throughout their career. If you have a great listening quality, then you will always be open to learn new things. Learning is a process of life and there is no end to it. It is the greatest quality of any good quality SAP consultant. Furthermore, you should always willing to share the knowledge, rather than hiding it in your head. Many SAP consultants, lacking this great quality. The more you share, your knowledge would be doubled, unlike money.

Many people have asked me how I can become a good SAP Consultant. My only answer is passion. Without passion, we cannot be successful in what we do. I see myself SAP Consultancy is also skill like swimming. Before I learn swimming, I was always wondering how the people swim. Though I was so passionate for swimming, I did not know how to swim it. Once I learned swimming, then compete with other people and learning all other new skills. Similarly, the people who aspiring to become a good SAP Consultant, also must be wonder, how can they become a good SAP Consultant. Read as much as you can, practice whenever you find time and listen to what mentors are saying. Never feel you have reached a pinnacle once you become a SAP Consultant. Becoming SAP Consultant is not the end of story, it is the start of new life and new journey. New life also gives you more challenges, more awards, rewards, and sacrifices to achieve what you want in life. Learning new skill is always a challenge, to become a master in that skill it would take years together. Therefore, to become a great consultant, learn SAP with authority and do not keep any gaps in conceptual knowledge and basic fundamentals. If your fundamentals are strong, then you can build a great palace.

Many people try to fake / exaggerate their CVs to become consultants. Never try to do such things. It would hunt you for life. What you know is what you know. What you do not know is what you do not know. There is always a tomorrow to learn something new and exciting. There is no shame to accept that you do not know something. There is no hard and fast rule that you should know everything in this world. It is unlikely and not possible. There are also many people who are really reluctant to share their knowledge. Furthermore, they would discourage the people who are intending to share the knowledge with true spirit. Forget about SAP Consultant, being a social animal, every individual in the society has an ethical responsibility to share something and help the society. The life is only fruitful when you share something to this world and help the fellow human beings. If we are only taking and fail to give anything back to the society, then there is no difference between animal and us.

Though following qualities are not comprehensive list to become a good SAP consultant, however, they would immensely helpful in their life long journey.

Good Education

Strong Education is the great foundation for any knowledge based profession. Just becoming a graduate or becoming a MBA is not everything, cannot be called as a good education. Always stretch yourself to toughest professional courses, which will take your knowledge levels to a new a level. Always try for the new professional courses, which test the waters. You should have a zeal from the childhood to have good education. Good education does not mean that studying in great B-schools. Good education always comes from within the individual, that spirit would push you towards learning new skills, subjects and technologies. Unless, you have strong inclination towards learning and education, it is always not possible to become a good consultant. For example, if you are a chartered accountant or management accountant, it would always immensely help you to become a good financial consultant.

Business Process Knowledge

Good SAP consultant should always have sound business process knowledge. What is this business process knowledge? The process surrounded at each business activity / item. To make it simpler, when you are working in an organisation, you would see number of jumbling words. For example, credit note, debit note, invoice, bank statement, good received note, inventory control, stock taking, balance sheet, profit and loss account, trail balance, purchase returns, production, planning, forecasting, budget, cash flow statement, cost sheet, funds flow, standard cost, marginal cost, fixed cost, materials, purchases, hedging, negotiable instruments, inter-bank clearing, banking operations, petty cash, procurement, purchase order, purchase requisition and what not. Now the question is how can I improve my business process knowledge? Business processes are dynamic and need not necessarily they are same within the industry. It may change from company to company. You need to understand each such word in detail and understand the business process flow surrounded by it. The important things to know is what is the triggering point for this activity and what are the subsequent business activities that are going to be followed. If you work, on these items, over a period of time, you would get good base of business process knowledge.

Configuration Skills

Configuration Skills are the most important skills for any SAP Consultant. Unless, you master in this area, you are not going to get the confidence in any project and you will be dependent on other people. You should be master yourself not only just configuring the system, but also needs to understand the impact from end user point of view. There are number of consultants reluctant to put their hands on the key board, however, intended to become master consultants, that is never going to be happened. I have observed number of consultants, they would never take the ownership of doing anything on SAP system, however, sit next to you by just watching and talking. If you are going into that mode, you are never going to be a SAP Consultant. The number of times you are going to configure and follow the business process / end user documents, it would give great confidence. Therefore, try to gather configuration documents and do as much practice as you can. Exploring the options in system gives you enough confidence, as the troubleshooting skills are very required for SAP Consulting profession.

SAP Help

SAP Help is like a Bible. Every day start reading sap help. http://help.sap.com SAP help is written with utmost care by experts. The more number of times that you are reading it would give enormous conceptual clarity. Whatever be level of your skill and knowledge in SAP, you should never forget reading SAP Help. SAP Consultants who mastered has spent thousands of hours reading this. You need to have many years reading on daily basis and it is not an easy job. Many people find it difficult to read huge amount of text regularly and religiously. At one point when the consultants become good in their own area, they tend to ignore reading this. They would refer only as and when required. However, in my opinion, reading SAP Help is habit that needs to be practiced in case if you need to transform yourself to a great consultant.

SAP Community Network

Over the years, SAP Community Network http://scn.sap.com/ has transformed itself to a rich source of SAP knowledge. SAP should itself feel proud of what a great platform that they have created to bring together the thousands of consultants across the globe. Points etc. has motivated number of people to contribute to the great extent. More than points, it is knowledge that is being shared through forums, articles, blogs, videos etc. are really amazing. Without being part of SAP Community Network, I do not consider you as a SAP Consultant. You may be highly knowledgeable, however, without that being shared for the community, there is really not much value. I do not think you would get any better platform to share your knowledge than this and get recognized. It is always worth to contribute / read the forums on a daily basis. This good habit would keep yourself with good amount of knowledge. Please do not only ask questions, try to share / answer whatever you can. There are number of people only tend to ask questions, but never tend to give answers. This is a very bad practice, life is to share and help. Just asking questions would make you nowhere.

Service Market Place

There is no better place than Service Market Place https://service.sap.com for SAP Consultants. It is really surprising to know that there are many certified consultants who do not even know where to login and how to login to this great resource. I understand you need to have the logon credentials to access this, if you do not have one, please ask your SAP Basis administrators. If you are already certified, please ask SAP Education / Help Desk, they would give your password. There is not just one type of document. For everything, you would be asked to refer a particular SAP Note, without having access to this, you could never know what the Note says. This is not just for referring notes, when you need to raise OSS (Online SAP Support) notes for your customers. It is not just limited to these things, it has everything. I cannot imagine a SAP consultant without having access to this great place.

SAP Best Practices Building Blocks

Being new to the consultant world, people tend to configure the system and test end user transactions how it works. However, there is no idea where to start and how to integrate between various modules. SAP Best Practices Building blocks would give a great amount of confidence to the consultant, as they provide the detailed configuration documents, business process documents and scenario overviews etc. The following link would be helpful. There are different versions of it. It contains guides across industry / country. If you have problem in accessing the following links, use Internet Explorer (IE) rather than google chrome browser. If you configure various scenarios in your demo system and test as per the business process documents, then your confidence levels will be immensely increased. The number of times you configure various scenarios, you would be mastered in that area.

http://help.sap.com/bp_bl604/BL_DE/html/Content_Library_BL_EN_DE.htm

Networking

21^st Century has started with Professional Networking / Social Network. You cannot imagine anybody without having linkedin / twitter / facebook. You always need to maintain the network and develop them over a period. Being knowledgeable is half of your task, whereas maintaining professional network is the other half. Both are like two sides of the same coin. Linkedin the best professional network site, everybody should have one and keep your profile up to date. You profile is the snapshot of your skills, education and achievements etc. If you give a name of a person, people tend to search in linkedin. If you do not have linkedin account, then they would think either you are fake or you do not exist. It is really awful to work in a professional organisation and do not have an up to date linkedin account. Personally, if I cannot see a person in linkedin, I surely believe, that person is a fake. Therefore, please update your linkedin profile, have good professional network and try to get recommendations from others.

Sharing Knowledge

There are number of people who are very reluctant to share their knowledge. You will only be recognized when you share your knowledge with your clients, colleagues and the community around you. If you do not share your knowledge, the knowledge inside you will be rusted over a period of time. Therefore, always open to learn to new things at the same go for an extra mile to share the knowledge with others. I have been negatively criticized by some of my friends / colleagues for writing blogs. When the whole world is writing blogs, why cannot we? I may not be expert in writing blogs, if anybody is being motivated with my blog, the very purpose of my task is accomplished. It is not required to have great amount of knowledge to share, but you should have wonderful heart. If you just work for yourself, earn yourself and educate yourself, then you would never get an identity in the world. Remove every barrier around you and start using your fullest potential to share the knowledge.

Communication Skills

Last, but not the least is Communication Skills. 90% of success to your career is dependent on your communications. Do not underestimate the power of communication skills in your career. It is not that everybody would have great amount of communication skills. It all depends on the natural skills, environment you grown up, the education you have undertaken etc. If you think you do not have them, then try to develop over a period of time. Communication Skills are not just talking in English, being a SAP Consultant you should always learn to talk both in Business Language and Technical Language. When you go to client places, it is always expected to talk to them in business language. At the same you should also have good command on the technical abilities when you are conveying to the other consultants. Nobody is perfect in this world, keep pushing yourself to fill the gaps in this area.

[former_member182098]

Thanks for your comments.

I can suggest the short term goals as

* Learn

* Practice

* Read

Kind Regards,

Ravi

[Private_Member_3759]

Hi Ravi,

Thank you for sharing awesome content. I am a fresher and it helps me in learning a lot. You write very well. Keep blogging :smile:

Thanks,

Ankita

[former_member182098]

Thanks a lot Ankita, much appreciated your comments.

Regards,

Ravi

[Former Member]

Very well said...highly appreciated :smile:

[former_member182098]

Thanks Meghna.

[Former Member]

Thanks!

[Former Member]

Thanks Ravi,

Now it's more clear for all of us what a beginner and an advanced SAP geek needs to do to get the right job :wink:

Phil

[former_member182098]

Thanks Phil. Much appreciated your comments.

[raquel_pereiradacunha]

Excellent blog, congratulations and thank you for sharing. Great reading.

There is only one thing that I don't agree: you said that you are not expert in writing blogs. You are indeed :wink:

Keep blogging.

Regards,

Raquel

[former_member182098]

Hi Raquel,

Thanks for reading my blog and your comments.

Ha ha ha ha :lol: It is always a great privilege to receive comments from great people, it inspires me a lot :smile:

Thanks once again.

Best Regards,

Ravi

PS: By the way, congratulations!!!!! on showing your blog on the first page of SCN, incidentally, my blog also shown on the first page of SCN, last week before your blog. :smile:

My Design Thinking experience

[Former Member]

Hi Ravi,

This blog is fantastic.

For a fresher like me, these are very useful points you made out.

I would go ahead to take a print of this and pin it near my desk.

Make these kind of blogs coming. Its been highly useful.

Thanks

Shreyas

[impraveen0192]

Hi Ravi,

i found it really nice for any fresher to start with.

Regards,

Praveen

[former_member182098]

Thanks Shreyas for encouraging words, much appreciated reading my blog and your comments.

[former_member182098]

Thanks Praveen.

Regards,

Ravi

[Mandarab76]

Dear Ravi,

You're like a an angel in distrace times. I've completed my certification last year in FI module. And have 5 years user experiance as well as some process automation experince. I'm really frustrated & feel like it was waste of money & time that I did certification. Otherwise, I thought, with 10+ years accounting experiance having MBA in Finance & M.Com., it was nice life I was leading. And, coupled with current economic scenario, openings seem to have dried up.

I feel there needs to be certain aptitude to be a consultant. If you're still tracking the posts, please revert. 

[former_member182098]

Dear Mandar,

Thanks for your comments.

Even I had to wait for 3 months after my first certification and blew off few interview for different reasons. I must be regretting now, had I been stopped my quest to jump into SAP Consulting world. I know it is very frustrating period and mentally challenging period. Many time we feel we almost got the offer, but due to some reason no obvious result. This all happens and it is all part of life. Perseverance is the key and keep trying yourself until you get a break. I agree it is difficult, but not impossible. I am sure hopefully, you are able to get it, if not today, definitely tomorrow.

All the best.

Kind Regards,

Ravi

[Mandarab76]

Dear Ravi,

Thank you for your encouraging words. The crux is managing the time for practice on Demo. And, it's me who has to figure out how to do it, given the demands of accountant's job & family. Let's see. In fact, I'd given up looking for job as SAP consultant, but, thanx to your blog, I'll start trying again.

Will keep in touch.

Thanks & Best Regards,

Mandar Bahadarpurkar

[Former Member]

Ravi,

Excellent work and it's spot on for people who are starting a career in SAP.

Regards

Arshad

[former_member182098]

Thanks Arshad, much appreciated your comments.

[nishan_dev]

Ravi,

Excellect blog, always enjoy reading your blogs.

Thank you,

Nishan Dev

[former_member182098]

Thanks Nishan. Much appreciated your comments.

[Former Member]

Hi Ravi,

Congrats on this excellent article!

I honestly hope all starters and juniors read this and follow your advice.

It may be old school according to the textbook, but there's one point I'd like to add and that's programming skills. I know the big firms like to differentiate between functional and technical and not everybody might agree with my cynical interpretation that this allows them to charge 3 people (a func, a tech, and a manager to make them talk to each other), when one would be enough.

But at our firm (HR only), every consultant needs to obtain ABAP proficiency for 3 reasons:

- when SAP help doesn't tell you everything, a good night of debugging (with Weissbeer and Pizza) unveils almost every secret

- it is not efficient to get an extra person involved to make small developments for reports or BAdIs. Sth. programmed in 2 hours would then easily lead to charging 2 days. And a pure functional consultant would often not even see, what an enhancement can achieve at reasonable cost, so may call on the developer in vain or forgo easy improvement opportunities

- even, if developers are brought in, a func consultant with development skills is much better at communicating with them, writing specs, and validating their estimates.

This is not saying everybody must  be equally strong at everything. There'll always be a functional or technical focus. You and the team around you need to understand your strengths and use them, but quite often it is beneficial to leave one's comfort zone.

E.g. my colleagues always say, I'm the man, if great bullshitting is required (I'd like to believe they mean I have strong communication and conceptional skills 😉 )

Still I'd never been able to deliver my current project (interfaces into CATS) without getting my hands dirty with programming myself while fine tuning the design.

This is probably a matter of debate, but anyway: that's the 2p I'd like to add to your excellent article.

Kind regards

Sven

[former_member182098]

Thanks Sven,

Much appreciated your comments.

You are right and I totally agree with your point. Companies always look for consultants with multiple skills, particularly, techno functional with managerial skills. It is not only company's point of view, but also from consultant point of view, multi-skills are always of great help.

However, in reality, most of the functional consultants find it difficult, or reluctant to learn the technical skills. Whereas, technical consultants are always scared of functional understanding. If the consultants can focus on this area, it would be real productive.

Kind Regards,

Ravi

[Former Member]

Hi Ravi,

I guess, that's why it's so sought after - if everybody would easily cross the techno-functional border, it wouldn't be such a valuable skill 😉

Cheers,

Sven

[P507709]

Thanks for the information

[Former Member]

Thanks for an info

[Former Member]

True inspiration. Hope to prove it with my own consultant life story in the near future :smile: Thanks

[former_member182098]

Thanks Nikola for your inspiring comments. :smile:

"Thousand miles destination starts with a single step".

Every consultant in this world start with that single step became consultants to create most complext business solution. Your strong belief will take you there.

All the very best.

Kind Regards,

Ravi

[Former Member]

Thanks Ravi, for this great blog!

This could be applied to any profession, hobby or interest you have. Willingness to learn, dedication and a desire to help others. If you want to rise to the top, this is the attitude your need.

I have bookmarked it, as it will serve as a good reference and reminder from time to time.

Best Regards,

Ron

[Former Member]

Ravi,

I am very new to SAP world.  I  am a mainframe professional just completed the Introduction to SAP HANA Development through open.sap.com. I created my profile in SCN, SAP market place. As your advice I read and learn atleast one thing a day.  It is an impressive and good advice blog. Congratulations!

regards,

Kumar Pitchumoney   

[former_member182098]

Thanks Ron. Much appreciated your comments and thanks for keeping as book mark.

You are totally right, whatever be the profession, it is the willingness to learn, dedication and desire to help others, differentiate the people. Probably, this is the gist of my whole blog 🙂

Best Regards,

Ravi

[former_member182098]

Thanks Kumar, much appreciated your comments.

If you learn one new thing a day, at some point of your future, you are the most experience personality. :smile:

Thanks once again for your encouraging comments.

Regards,

Ravi

[Former Member]

Thanks & It will really help us. 

A.Mahadevan

[former_member182098]

Thanks a lot Mahadevan.

[former_member192971]

Dear Ravi ,

Nice to see your blog . Its a Valuable content which everyone needs to follow to come-up in their life and I started analyzing where I am and what to acheive ....

  Very Impressive.

Thanks for Sharing.

Best Regards,

Uday .

[former_member182098]

Thanks Uday, much appreciated your comments.

Kind Regards,

Ravi

[Former Member]

well done!

[Former Member]

Great...!! It will be definitely helpful for me as a fresher..!! :smile:

Thanx a Ton..!!

[former_member182098]

Thanks Komal.

[Former Member]

Ravi, can you give me exact directions, that I should follow as a SAP Basis fresher..?

[former_member182098]

Hi Komal,

My blog should be applicable any consultant, irrespective of the module.

Being a basis consultant,

a) you should have sound system administration / networking / security knowledge

b) proper training

c) more practice and clearing understanding of SAP basis activities

d) real time experience

e) SAP Certification (may help you to project yourself)

Regards,

Ravi

[Former Member]

Ravi,

I am a Fresher just started working in sap start of this year...what points you have described is so true and SAP is like an ocean and i am working in MM and WM, which are just 2 Drops of this ocean...everyday you learn new things...if you dont have the appetite to learn that is the day you will forget everything in sap and from there its downwards..

Amazing that you jhave put light on this point..very good post..

Kudos to your thought process...

Keep posting.

Regards

Pratish Naidu

[former_member182098]

Thanks Pratish, much appreciate your comments.

As you rightly said, the appetite for learning is most important for any consultant. Learning is a process for life and it should be continual.

Thanks again for your thoughts.

Regards,

Ravi

[Former Member]

Thank you Ravi for your suggestions.

[Former Member]

Hello sir, ur speech was very good and impressive,,, then i am new to this forum ,i need ur suggestion sir pls help me...

i am santhosh, working as a SAP END USER for past one year, to become a SAP functional consultant is my dream.but now am getting low salary has end user. then recently i got selected as IT support in mahindra logistics  with some good package..so NOW AM IN CONFUSION, which to choose .. whether to survive as a SAP END user OR to get into a IT support then i can search SAP JOBS from there. so pls help me...  

before that now am currently pursuing SAP MM module course..am very much intersted to become as a SAP consultant, its my goal too.. so pls give me ur suggestion.. i request the people who al reading this , pls give a suggestion.. am totally confused... sometimes i am thinking like..in the new company whether its any possible way is avaible  to learn sap over there....

[former_member182098]

Hi Santhosh,

What is IT Support in your new role? Is is related to SAP?

If your new job does not involve SAP, then I do not mind getting low salary at your current job. Being an end user you can explore many things. Personally, I would prefer working on SAP. Money is not really important, because, if you have not working on SAP product, then it would difficult for your convince the prospective employers in future.

Regards,

Ravi

[Former Member]

thanks for replying sir..IT support in d sense, they are  in supporting and developing many apps.. sorry i do know the application name and al in which i got selected, but am damn sure its not releated with SAP,,, at present am working as a end user in integration module of SD and WM ,,,, but what my mind say is .. in mahindra logistics they are using a MM module over there,,, so wen i joined job over there.. simulatenously i can learn few things in MM , then i ill get some contacts in d MM field...through tis we can easily get into as a SAP MM FUNCTIONAL CONSULTANT... i do know my decision is right or wrong.. u oly have to give solution for my confusion sir

[former_member182098]

Hi Santhosh,

It is your final decision to take where you need to go. If everything goes fine as you expected, then it is fine. Otherwise, my concern is you may end up in IT support.

Please take a conscious decision.

All the best.

Regards,

Ravi

[Former Member]

oh k sir.....  am interested in SAP oly... but due to my finacial situation oly.. am thinking to go..anyway ill not go.. now... .then one more doubt sir...now am currently working as a SAP end user, then what i want to do next.. to become a functional consultant sir...

Regards,

santhosh

[Former Member]

oh k sir.....  am interested in SAP oly... but due to my finacial situation oly.. am thinking to go..anyway ill not go.. now... .then one more doubt sir...now am currently working as a SAP end user, then what i want to do next.. to become a functional consultant sir...

Regards,

santhosh