SAP Functional Consultant / Business Analyst - Certifications

[former_member355940]

Hello everybody,

I have almost 5 years of experience in SAP. I am a functional consultant and have some experiences in various modules of SAP . Being said that , My question here is :-

My current profile is Business System analyst. Well it was same in last company too. What is the difference between Consultant and Business System analyst ? A junior consultant is called Business System analyst?

What is the scope of an SAP consultant/analyst  after ...say 10 years of experience? What are the various option he/she can choose?  I believe one can opt to be an consultant or can move to management side .

So If I want to be a Consultant what should be the approach . How to proceed further and be successful  in your career . Should one go for certification or be techno functional  !!!

and same for the management  - What should be the approach . What are the various certification which will strengthen my profile . Please provide the certification names and there benefits .

Example :-

Certification of Competency in Business Analysis ™ (CCBA®)

Certified Business Analysis Professional™ (CBAP®)

Regards

Avitej Kotwal

[Former Member]

Hi Avitej,

A Business consultant is a generalist, in that, they have knowledge and skills in several areas, finance, accounting, management, strategic thinking, etc., and utilize their knowledge and skill set to formulate a course of action that will help the company overcome their problems and plan effectively for the future. They will spend time learning and absorbing relevant information about the company as a whole and try to understand the drivers for success and determine where the obstacles to achieving success may lie. The endgame for a business consultant is to draft a plan for success and provide a road map that the company can implement to achieve the desired results.

So workwise, SAP Consultant will participate in every stage of a implementation project right from Blueprinting until the Go live and Post Go Live.

Again there are two category of the Consultant :

• Functional &
• Technical

Functional consultant will focus on functional modules and its implementation to meet busines requirements including the documentation like BPD, CD, FD, Testing Document etc.

Technical consultant on the other hand will focus on the development task of the RICEFW Requirements staring from taking of the handoff for FD prepared by the functional consultant, preparng the TD, Write the code, do the unit testing and finally handing the development to the functional consultant for Integration/UAT and any other testing that is required to be done before the development object is moved to Production.

On the other hand the work of Business Analyst is to participate in the requirement gathering, taking the requirement from client, refining the requirement, preparing the Requirement Tracibility Requirement, preparing the FIT/GAP and handing it over to the Functional as well as Technical consultant.

Many a times you would see typically that Solution consultants are acting in both the capacity first playing the role of a business analyst and then playing the role of a consultat.

There might be different types of projects like Implementation, Upgrade, Support etc.

Mosly you will find Business Analyst gets recruited for the implementation projects only for the initial few months upto mostly Analyse phase of the project an then their role gets over or they take over other suitable roles.

Let me know if you still have any doubt.

Thanks & Reards

Subhasish