Ashvini Ramesh, SAP HR consultant
We are moving towards process orientation in all areas today. One such area is organizational processes. Eg., Sales, Operations, Human Resources, Finance, etc. Organizations are now implementing ERP to increase efficiency and cut down costs. SAP, a German company developed SAP ERP product, with 40 years of research to provide solutions in different functional areas. These solutions are called modules. Eg., HR module supports HR process, it is the same with Finance and so on.
There are two areas of expertise in SAP – Technical and Functional. Students opting for SAP career ideally have to work in an organization prior to starting a career, to know and understand the business process. A Functional consultant is a person who configures the system to reflect business requirements. A technical consultant is a programmer or basis person. The programmer develops programs specified by functional people to fill gaps between business processes and SAP. The basis people make sure that the system works continuously. Today, these roles are merging.
With an engineering degree, one can get trained in technical area or both. SAP Labs trains campus recruits for the same. But with a management degree, one can get trained in functional area. There are SAP educational partners who provide training and certification in these areas. I.e Source one, IT Champs, Atos. Training from these places is better, as they have good placement plans. If you are interested in management, and a role with technical expertise, you can choose SAP as your career option.
Not only it is lucrative, it also gives one innumerable options in the IT Industry.