Any SAP Consultants out there?

[GrensonMan]

Wanted to connect with any of the other members that implement SAP. My area of focus is MM. How did you get into SAP and what do you think the future holds for SAP consultants? I have been out of college for 1.5 yrs. and studied Mechanical Engineering at a top 10 school. I am starting to rethink my decision of entering the SAP world. The reason being, I am having to deal with offshore counterparts much more frequently than I would like and it has been a very frustrating experience. Unfortunately, this industry made a big move for the offshore model years ago and it is still in practice. Everyone is trying to save a buck, but the old adage is true, "you get what you pay for." I would love to hear others' thoughts on this topic and what they might do if they were a 25 yr old still trying to figure out what they want to do.

 

[Onetwobit]

Not in SAP myself, but my father has been in SAP for 25+ years and currently looking to "get out". He was an implementation engineer in the 90's for a massive telecom company then moved on to coca-cola for many years and worked / ran some enormous projects there. He eventually moved out of industry to the consulting side (top IT consulting firm). Ended up jumping ship and is currently looking for other things to do.

Not 100% relevant to your situation but I know he regrets being siloed to SAP for most of his career. He is almost 60 and doesn't need to work, so you can do well, but it's possible to get stuck.

 

[GrensonMan]

Getting stuck is what I am afraid of. Sometimes I feel like working in SAP is a waste of my engineering degree. On the flip side, there is the potential to do very well in SAP and the consulting/managing experience can translate nicely to other industries.

 

[jfranci3]

I've been doing SAP work since 2000. I've worked for a large pharma corp, a big 4 consulting firm, SAP itself, and now an international conglomerate. I have MM, PP, WM, and LE experience in SAP R/3, Retail, and AFS.

A few observations:
1) Working with international colleagues is a skillset, not a problem. You'll have better and worse experiences. You'll encounter experienced and inexperienced colleagues. In many professional roles you would encounter the same problem. There are pure technical skillests, the offshore work, and there are people-facing work, onshore - this won't change.
2) There's a big difference between being a support analyst and an implementation consultant. If you're a support analyst looking at one implementation, you tend to become too indoctrinated in the company's model / problems; meaning your skills aren't portable outside of the company.
3) The lifespan of a corporate business system is 20+ years. Technical solutions come and go. SAP technology skills are somewhat stable. Unlike other technical skills, you need both the business process knowledge and technical knowledge to do your job. This makes you a more valuable worker.
4) Always choose do to implementation work. Do it for as many companies as possible. Do it for a company that makes a profit on your efforts (profit center vs cost center). Get good at the methodologies, project sizing,etc. If your current gig doesn't have you doing implementation work, go work for a consulting company. Get good at your area (don't switch areas like I did). Work on new implementations, not additional roll outs.
5) You can make ok money working for a business in a cost center, you can make good money as a consultant working for a consulting company, you can make very good money as a 1099 contractor or in service and software sales.
6) Think of yourself not as a SAP IT resource, but as a business systems consultant. One is a technologist, the other provides more value.

7) I hate to say it, but if you didn't move on your engineering degree right at graduation your opportunity is lost. You did a lot of math for nothing. At new degree smell wears off pretty quickly. I would look into PDM / PLM tools . Maybe you can combine your engineering project knowledge with business system tools knowledge. These tools move data from the engineering systems to the business systems. You can manage the design-to-market process.