[the Thing]

Sup all,

In 4-5 years I want to be a freelance SAP consultant. Right now I work as a software developer and I'll either go in the architecture direction (which is the natural direction for software developers) or switch to SAP.

I work at an international consulting firm and 80% of our business is SAP, they have a favorable opinion of me as a bright guy and they are likely to finance my certifications and train me hands-on at one or two big SAP projects.

I am thinking about gaining my Swedish citizenship along with my SAP credentials, work a few projects at my firm (we have a few big clients in mfg, retail, banking etc. that always have requirements) then consult oil & gas in Norway, Canada, Aust or Middle East. Is there still money to be made at SAP? Or is architecture in enterprise software the way to go?

And what area of SAP makes you the most cash nowadays? (Which industry should I aim for? What modules are the way to go? Certifications etc. that I should have...)

Cheers..

[TravellerJay]

Hey TheThing, how are you?
I would say go for SAP Basis or ABAP, or Supply chain I believe the module is the SDM or one of the core modules.
There should be an official partner or training center in Sweden so you can check which academies you have available. But it all depends on what you fancy or like. Are you a Sales person or a financial/accountant one?
or are you more focused in the IT side of things? if you are, then basis or security

Banking and Oil are where the money is right now. if i were you, I d go for oil and gas, the SAP IS Oil and Gas module.
Here is a link for you to check all the SAP modules, the core ones and the fancy new ones. Also the industry ones, like Banking and Oil.
http://robyscar.com/2012/09/18/complete-...p-modules/

Jay

[Wreckingball]

At the moment big money is being made on SAP - Success Factors, however most of the projects are still expensive and sold to mostly big multinationals (Siemens, BMW, 3M, Alcatel, etc). Modules are Employee central, Recruiting Management and Learning.

Remember, SAP business is escaping on premise and is moving towards cloud. Whatever you do regarding an SAP future, make sure it's part of cloud.

[rudebwoy]

SAP has been around for awhile now, 4-5 years is a long time. The demand is hot right now but cannot predict the future, as mentioned cloud is where the market is going. I did a search and SAP consultants are paid very well.

[Wreckingball]

(05-10-2015 07:34 PM)rudebwoy Wrote:  

SAP has been around for awhile now, 4-5 years is a long time. The demand is hot right now but cannot predict the future, as mentioned cloud is where the market is going. I did a search and SAP consultants are paid very well.

SAP has very small exposure to North American markets. However, almost every company in Europe runs SAP.
As the world is moving towards cloud based solution, there will be a big gap and a big battle between the competition. System architectures will be completely new, so switching solutions will come at "almost 0" cost.
Contenders at moment are:
Workday (by far the best solution) and SAP SuccessFactors.
BTW: SAP as a company has been around since the 70's.

[the Thing]

Really? They say 86% of Fortune 500 companies use SAP
That would be enough exposure as it is. Also we have LOTS of consultants working in the U.S. (Our parent company's main income stream is U.S. actually)

[evilhei]

I have worked with SAP for last 6-7 years. Im working for end user company, so i'm not exactly consultant but more of an in house consultant. I do very technical stuff with SAP, I know ABAP etc. From the end users point of view I don't think no one will switch SAP to something different, its just too much work. SAP is also wildly used in governments, European Government institutions etc.

Its hard to gain good SAP experience on your own because there's no possibility to really learn ABAP without a SAP environment and you can't set it up yourself but I think if you manage it you will have enough work to go around.

[BBinger]

If you can tolerate working with SAP consider exploring COBOL and PL/1 which also pay a lot for doing unpleasant work. Take some cheap MOOC or community college classes. If it isn't a fir for you drop it early. If you can tolerate it leverage your tolerance for those languages to make bank.

IBM's system z is similar in that it is an unpleasant niche which can bring in bank.

[evilhei]

Why do think its unpleasent work?

[192]

I have done two SAP projects in Australia in the change management / l&d space. SAP is extremely well paid here even compared to Oracle (seems like daily rates up to twenty percent higher).

I actually hate SAP but considering it for another gig as the pays so good.

I know a couple SAP funkies who do very well, one got transferred from Malaysia with all expenses paid, visa, accommodation etc etc for 2 years. There is a skills shortage here.

[the Thing]

(05-21-2015 07:07 AM)evilhei Wrote:  

Why do think its unpleasent work?

Coming from a modern programming language, COBOL is very ancient. There's not much new development in COBOL and most of your job will be maintaining a 30-year old software, which you'd hate just by definition. However, the average COBOL programmers today are in their sixties and ~70% of the world's business logic still runs on COBOL so it will still be relevant for a while.
I think my only job prospects as a COBOL developer would be at established banks and insurance companies etc. I'm looking at this the same way I look at game. COBOL has less clients so lower chance of landing good contracts, whereas somewhere in the world someone will always be moving to SAP. And the beauty of SAP for me is, the SAP deployment is never complete and companies always need consultants.
I work at a SAP-heavy company and from what I see, SAP work (apart from ABAP) is somewhat like installing Windows and setting up things. So I don't think tolerating SAP should be treated the same as tolerating COBOL. I hate maintaining other people's Java code already, I'd definitely kill myself if I were maintaining other people's COBOL code.

Anyway. I was thinking to go to the functional side, because I hate sitting down and writing code, but if my prospects would be better in the technical/development side I'll gladly learn ABAP because as wall street playboys say "don't do what you like, do what you're good at" and I'll do what I'm good at as long as it pays more. So what do SAP guys think about this.

Also. SAP is pushing HANA big time. Every SAP event all they talk about is hana hana hana. Is HANA any big?

[evilhei]

(05-21-2015 07:33 AM)the Thing Wrote:  

(05-21-2015 07:07 AM)evilhei Wrote:  

Why do think its unpleasent work?

Coming from a modern programming language, COBOL is very ancient. There's not much new development in COBOL and most of your job will be maintaining a 30-year old software, which you'd hate just by definition. However, the average COBOL programmers today are in their sixties and ~70% of the world's business logic still runs on COBOL so it will still be relevant for a while.
I think my only job prospects as a COBOL developer would be at established banks and insurance companies etc. I'm looking at this the same way I look at game. COBOL has less clients so lower chance of landing good contracts, whereas somewhere in the world someone will always be moving to SAP. And the beauty of SAP for me is, the SAP deployment is never complete and companies always need consultants.
I work at a SAP-heavy company and from what I see, SAP work (apart from ABAP) is somewhat like installing Windows and setting up things. So I don't think tolerating SAP should be treated the same as tolerating COBOL. I hate maintaining other people's Java code already, I'd definitely kill myself if I were maintaining other people's COBOL code.

Anyway. I was thinking to go to the functional side, because I hate sitting down and writing code, but if my prospects would be better in the technical/development side I'll gladly learn ABAP because as wall street playboys say "don't do what you like, do what you're good at" and I'll do what I'm good at as long as it pays more. So what do SAP guys think about this.

Also. SAP is pushing HANA big time. Every SAP event all they talk about is hana hana hana. Is HANA any big?

Yes I agree and I don't see what is the relevance in COBOL to SAP? I believe doing some ancient COBOL stuff can be boring but ABAP is not that bad, its object oriented and quite easy to read.

I think also its better to be a functional SAP consultant who has very good understanding of business and can also read/debug ABAP, write little so you can modify smartforms, formulas etc.. Thats the best option. I think the best combination is like 2-3 years of pure business experience using SAP and then transforming into the technical/consulting area. Thats what I did anyway.

[greekgod]

delete

[evilhei]

removed for pricavy concerns

[Wreckingball]

(05-28-2015 11:15 AM)greekgod Wrote:  

HCM-Workday is going to eat everyone's lunch so if you are looking @ SAP/Successfactors, I'd stay way from HCM.

Could you please elaborate here?
I know Workday is way better than SF, however it is an "all or nothing" system. You have to get the whole package.
What kind of rates are you seeing for certified SF guys? (I have recruiting and soon oboarding).

[greekgod]

No idea on rates for certified SuccessFactors Guys. It just hasn't caught on like Workday.

I'm not commenting on the technical capabilities of each platform, I'm just speaking of market momentum. Workday has the sexy, it factor for HCM. Also, consider Workday fully controls their eco system requiring constant certs and has heavy planned obsolesce built into the product by scheduling auto releases/updates every quarter.

By controlling the eco system, you avoid H1 creep. The updates create a constant need for people working on system.

Lastly, consider this, HCM systems are back office systems for companies. IE; no organization can make money off HCM systems so in many ways its a "set it and forget it: part of IT until they are forced to update.

(05-31-2015 05:46 PM)Wreckingball Wrote:  

(05-28-2015 11:15 AM)greekgod Wrote:  

HCM-Workday is going to eat everyone's lunch so if you are looking @ SAP/Successfactors, I'd stay way from HCM.

Could you please elaborate here?
I know Workday is way better than SF, however it is an "all or nothing" system. You have to get the whole package.
What kind of rates are you seeing for certified SF guys? (I have recruiting and soon oboarding).

[Virtus]

What do you think of salesforce prospects?

[Wreckingball]

(06-03-2015 01:14 PM)greekgod Wrote:  

No idea on rates for certified SuccessFactors Guys. It just hasn't caught on like Workday.

I'm not commenting on the technical capabilities of each platform, I'm just speaking of market momentum. Workday has the sexy, it factor for HCM. Also, consider Workday fully controls their eco system requiring constant certs and has heavy planned obsolesce built into the product by scheduling auto releases/updates every quarter.

By controlling the eco system, you avoid H1 creep. The updates create a constant need for people working on system.

Lastly, consider this, HCM systems are back office systems for companies. IE; no organization can make money off HCM systems so in many ways its a "set it and forget it: part of IT until they are forced to update.

(05-31-2015 05:46 PM)Wreckingball Wrote:  

(05-28-2015 11:15 AM)greekgod Wrote:  

HCM-Workday is going to eat everyone's lunch so if you are looking @ SAP/Successfactors, I'd stay way from HCM.

Could you please elaborate here?
I know Workday is way better than SF, however it is an "all or nothing" system. You have to get the whole package.
What kind of rates are you seeing for certified SF guys? (I have recruiting and soon oboarding).

Thanks for the insight. I totally agree with you. From what i have seen Workday is a much better and more complete tool than SF. I think that SAP will be fighting an interesting fight. Are they going to keep up with competition or going to actually improve product and support?

[greekgod]

(06-03-2015 01:29 PM)Virtus Wrote:  

What do you think of salesforce prospects?

Barrier to entry is low. You can become an admin with 3 months of study and always stand to make $75K

To kill it you have to get certs ($3000+ per cert), be at the architect level, and do enterprise level projects.

Company seems to be struggling, have used the product in past-its good, dont have a comparison of SFDC to Siebel or SAP CRM. You'd have to ask someone else.

[midlifealpha]

We just went through project dumping people soft for workday.

PWC handled the implementation (no comment). I happen to be the lead for B2B e-commerce which means aĺl of the file traffic edi etc. We ended up keeping a lot of the interfaces on my platform because they just couldn't get it all done before go-live. Although I did not work directly with the Workday app, I thought about making a jump over to Workday because their are parallels.

I have close to 20 years in my niche which pays nicely but I seem to have to move every 5-7 years. My boss says I make almost what all the bosses make and they are more replaceable. So I've dug in but it's tempting. I'm only 46 might pick up something I can ride through to retirement