How to become a SAP consultant

Let me split this question into two parts. On the one side there are students or business users who want to start or change their career into SAP. On the other side consultants who want to grow and become better for themselves and market. Except first several steps the remaining approach is the same and there let’s be honest to each other, there is no easy way how to become a SAP consultant. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but like any other profession it takes time (from my experience it’s about 5 years). Let’s dive into it. 

First of all you need to understand consulting is a tough profession. You must deal with people everyday. You must travel to different cities or countries. And the most important you must learn something new everyday. If you are up to this, than follow me and see what applies to you. Sometimes you need to not only to learn but to keep your sap certification up to date. 

So, what does SAP consultants do? They consult other people, companies in either way: how to change business processes or how to implement a new IT system like SAP. Ideally you should do both – these people are SAP functional architects, cause they know how to change business to make it better and support these changes with IT system.

There are functional and technical consultants. Functional are these boys and girls who know business, not IT. They understand legal reporting, business requirements, best practices in specific areas. Technical people are these nerds, who install, support, update IT part of SAP implementation. In 99% cases you can’t be both. And the worst news are you can’t switch modules (areas) because just one module would take you 5 years to learn to be a good SAP consultant. 

Step 1. Find a business area

It’s really important. Some people are good in communications, others in math, third in coding, etc. It’s about what you like to do most, because once you in, be ready to stay there at least 5 years. Yes, it takes minimum 5 years to learn just one modules, one functional area in SAP. 

Idea is to stick with something general and then become more specific over the years. General I mean finances, sales and distributions, controlling, human resources, material management, logistics, etc. It’s a good idea to do some preliminary research what this business area is, what do people do there, how it looks like.

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5 Efficient steps to build SAP HCM Consultant Career

I’ve seen a lot of requests on different forums how to become SAP HCM Consultant, how to start consultant’s career, where to find the first job, what salary to expect and so on. It’s really complex and complicated question that we will try to open up in this article. I assume your first question would be why you should trust me or even read. Don’t want to boast but my profile says it all. Have a look here and come back to continue if you still want to be an SAP HCM Consultant in couple years and progress quickly. I’ve been working with SAP almost 15 years. Have started as a Developer who wrote couple menus, reports and then switched to Basis guy, supporting all IT infrastructure. Today I’ve played all roles in this theater from developer to project director. I’ve seen a lot of people coming to SAP market, how they developed through their career and who they are today. I’ve taught hundreds of junior sap hcm consultants, end-users and most of them are still in the market.

So, let’s have a look at the real world and how a student can enter SAP HCM market today, where to grow, and, more important, how to grow. Only practice.

First step to becoming SAP HCM Consultant (choose)

There are literally three global areas in SAP HCM (or SAP HR they used to name it). Accounting people, running payroll, motivating people. Accounting people is about how every single person is placed in a company structure. These hr consultants do organizational management setup, personnel administration, time tracking. It’s not bad, it’s more basic, foundation stuff you need to set to continue with payroll or people development and motivation. There are no projects without SAP OM, PA, PT modules, so there will be demand always.

If you like doing the math, like programming, solving logical tasks, then payroll is all yours. Time evaluation and payroll calculation are the most difficult SAP modules in a whole SAP HCM solution. You need to know the law, legal requirements, taxes, gross wages, reporting and you’ll always keep yourself busy. Laws changes, SAP changes, so you’ll be in demand all the time. These guys are paid the most in the SAP world.

If you like talking, communicating, analyzing why people behave this or that way you’d better stick with SAP talent management package, which includes a lot of functionality: SAP Learning Solution, SAP Recruiting, SAP Performance Management, SAP Talent Management and many others.

So, make a decision today cause tomorrow you’ll not be able to change it. It takes years to become a professional only in one area mentioned above. You don’t have that much time to change career paths like cars.

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