SAP Career Outlook 2010:

The Intersection of Talent and Community

By Jon Reed of JonERP.com
Exclusive to the SCN Career Center

Part One: Creating a Winning SAP Skills Strategy for 2010

OVERVIEW

Executive Summary: Why SAP Skills Matter—In Any Economy

SAP Skills Strategy: A Winning Approach for 2010

A. Staying Marketable in Any Economy: It Starts With Skills Mastery

B. SAP Skills Convergence: The Morphing of “Geeks” and “Suits”

C. Pulling it Together: How to Combine Generalization and Specialization

This white paper was written for the SAP Community Network Career Center by Jon Reed in
January of 2010. At the time of its publication, SAP decided to make all job postings to the SCN
Career Center free for all employers.

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Executive Summary: Why SAP Skills Matter—In Any Economy
As we enter 2010, SAP careers are at a crossroads. Gone are the breathless proclamations of
massive SAP skills shortages. SaaS vendors have stormed onto the scene, taking buzz away
from SAP careers by implying that a future in SAP may not be as rock solid as we once thought.
SAP customers continue to push the staffing envelope with global sourcing of SAP skills.

We are also seeing the first cloud-based services firms, as well as the addition of “virtual help
desks” by established SAP services providers. Fresh approaches bring new ways of hiring SAP
consultants, but that does not necessarily mean SAP professionals will see an increase in
demand or a bump in salary as a result.

Despite these shifts, the SAP career outlook in 2010 presents many opportunities for the savvy
SAP professional. Increasingly, the two main components of a successful SAP career—skills
acquisition and self-marketing—are becoming intertwined. Community participation on social
networks provides SAP professionals with a whole new way of approaching their careers. There
is a catch. Capitalizing on these changes requires both a shift in mindset and a re-evaluation of
the skills typically considered to be the key to SAP marketability.

In this two part white paper series, exclusively written for the SAP SCN Career Center, I’ll
provide an outlook of the SAP skills I expect to be in demand in 2010. I will present these
emerging skills in a context of so-called “career best practices” I have identified from my
conversations with SAP professionals and hiring managers. I have intentionally structured this
paper to be relevant to a range of experience levels.

You are currently reading part one of this two part white paper series. In part one, I’ll explain
how to define a winning skills strategy for 2010. Part two looks at the changing rules for
marketing those skills in the social networking era. In part two, I’ll also include a view of some of
the “hot” SAP skills for 2010 in light of these business trends.

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 SAP Skills Strategy: A Winning Approach for 2010

A. Staying Marketable in Any Economy: It Starts With Skills Mastery

When it comes to SAP career success, one thing has not changed: for the hands-on SAP
professional, mastery of a particular area of SAP remains the key to marketability. It may sound
strange to begin a discussion of SAP careers with the notion of mastery, since skills mastery is
really an end goal. Success in SAP means creating a personal skills strategy. That means
envisioning the desired result – skills mastery of a particular area of SAP – and working
backwards from there to define a step-by-step plan for skills acquisition.

While the downturn has impacted the overall demand for SAP skills, many employers still have
a wish list of sought after SAP experts. Management of SAP talent is a serious issue for
employers—in any economy. I recently issued a podcast with Nenshad Bardoliwalla, former
SAP executive and co-author of Driven to Perform: Risk-Aware Performance Management from
Strategy to Execution. Bardoliwalla’s book is significant because it charts the shift that
companies still need to make in their efforts to link strategy and execution.

If that sounds familiar to those of you who track SAP buzzwords, that’s because it is: Nenshad
was part of the SAP team that helped to define the SAP BusinessObjects strategy of linking
strategy to execution. This is a key trend for SAP professionals as well, as we look to embody
SAP’s own goal of bringing “intelligence” to transactions, helping users get the info they need in
the form (or device) they want to “consume” it in.

During our podcast, Nenshad shared the business trends that impact his thinking. One key trend
he noted is the cultivation of talent. As Nenshad put it:

The talent wars for the best and brightest are nonstop, no
matter where we are in the economic cycle. The discipline of
“talent management” has become a must-have for companies
who want to cultivate (and measure) internal talent and
provide an advancement path for top performers.

But a good team is only as good as the next project. In some cases, even good internal teams
have to rely on outside experts in particular areas. In recent cases I’ve seen, one involved
NetWeaver PI; another, SAP security; and a third involved SAP pricing.

These outside experts were brought in because their area of mastery was something that the
project was unable to provide internally. That’s why SAP skills mastery counts.

SAP skills mastery creates internal job security, while also ensuring that other companies will
seek you out to fill a gap on their team, whether or not you are on the job market.

The times, however, are definitely a-changing. These days, technical skills mastery is only one
aspect of SAP skills success. What are the key components of the SAP skill set we should seek
to acquire? Let’s have a look.

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B. SAP Skills Convergence: The Morphing of “Geeks” and “Suits”

For a long time, I’ve advocated that SAP professionals needed to have some level of techno-
functional know-how to become a top shelf SAP professional, a.k.a. a real “rock star.”
Historically, I always felt that the best mix was 80 percent technical and 20 percent functional, or
vice versa.

The 20 percent meant you knew just enough about what was happening on the other side of the
fence to be able to speak their language. The 80 percent ensured you didn’t drift too far from
your area of SAP skills mastery. SAP is simply too vast to master across the board. For every
true SAP guru who knows five modules, I run into nine “jack of all trades” types whose skills are
spread too thin in a futile effort to be all things to all projects.

In the last couple years, however, my view on the 80/20 mix has started to change. The SAP
BPX community has had a lot to do with my shift in philosophy on this. Why? Well, for one thing,
we’re starting to see the emergence of two new job roles, the SAP Enterprise Architect and the
SAP Solution Architect. By “emergence,” I mean that these job titles are showing up on job
requirements and actual business cards. These new roles are pretty much 50/50
functional/technical, give or take.

Enterprise Architects are often a bit more technical, looking at architectural and system
landscape issues, usually from the vantage point of service-oriented architecture. The Solution
Architect is often more on the functional side, mapping out SAP functional solutions,
communicating with the Enterprise Architect to ensure that the functional solution is aligned with
the NetWeaver landscape.

Note: these job role definitions do vary wildly at this point (some define the Solution Architect in
more technical terms), so how I’ve defined may be different than how you encounter them.

Of course, these “SAP Architect” jobs are not commonplace today. But it’s evidence that the
technical and functional skills sets are converging. These days, suits are better off being geeky
and geeks are better off if they can wear a suit from time to time. I heard someone call this new
skill set a “suite,” but that name won’t stick as it sounds more like a software program than a
person. Nicknames to be decided, the impact of the BPX skill set is real. But we must be careful:
getting too futuristic about skills is dangerous. Chasing tomorrow’s skills is not the right
approach for today’s job market.

I have written extensively about the impact of BPX skills on SAP professionals, and so have
others in the SAP BPX Community. If you want a head start on this, if you haven’t already, read
Process First: The Evolution of the Business Process Expert, written by BPX Global Director
and SAP SCN Vice President Marco ten Vaanholt in conjunction with the SAP BPX community.

I also wrote a detailed SCN blog post on the topic, entitled, “So What Does it Take to Become
an SAP Business Process Expert?” The short version? I believe we need to see BPX skills not
as a futuristic view of new project roles, but as a menu of skills all SAP professionals should be
striving to add. BPX skills should be incorporated in a gradual manner, with priority placed on
the skills best suited for your particular role.

Here’s a quick rundown of my favorite high-impact BPX skills:

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 • Experience with process modeling tools: Most of these modeling tools are still
intended for technical users, but with time, more are being geared toward business users.
It doesn’t matter which tool you work with at this point, the key is to understand the
principles behind their usage.
• “Web 2.0” skills: To distinguish Web 2.0 consumer tools from business-friendly tools, I
often use the term “Enterprise 2.0.” For the aspiring SAP pro, I see three relevant areas
in Enterprise 2.0:

1. Knowledge of online collaboration tools like wikis and “Waves”;

2. Ability to improve the enterprise UI experience, informed by knowledge of popular
social networking tools and UIs, and
3. Understanding how to expand the company’s SAP network beyond organizational
walls to collaborate on projects and/or get quick answers to technical questions.

Obviously more hardcore E 2.0 business use cases are coming along. Those who stay on top of
open development standards and the potential for managing cross-company projects in a
(secure) online fashion will add some sizzle to their SAP skill set.

• “Soft” skills: Soft skills is a distinct category which existed long before “BPX,” and it’s as
mushy to define as it sounds. In face, I’m sinking into skills quicksand even as I type this.
Just remember that “soft skills” don’t have to be that “soft” – sometimes implementation
methodology knowledge is classified as a soft skill. I recommend all SAP professionals
know something about SAP’s implementation (ASAP) and post-go live (Run SAP)
methodologies. SAP is also working on a new implementation methodology which adds
BPM principles to the classic ASAP approach.

We could also put the ability to make a business case for one’s project in this “soft skills”
category, and we could toss in “change management” as well, which we can roughly translate
as the ability to get everyone in the organization on the same page so they don’t reject the new
tools before the lights go on.

Suddenly soft skills don’t seem so soft.

• Industry know-how: I’m hearing a frequent refrain from hiring managers: SAP
professionals need more industry experience. This has special relevance to those who
want to remain relevant on site and not be easily outsourced. And yes, technical pros can
benefit from industry depth also.
• Knowledge of the end-to-end business processes that relate to your SAP skills
focus: Historically, SAP professionals functioned in “silos” such as HR or Financials. But
increasingly, SAP customers are approaching ERP in terms of end-to-end business
processes, such as order-to-cash or procure-to-pay or hire-to-retire. SAP’s own Business
Suite is actually structured around such processes, known as “Value Scenarios.”

While this doesn’t mean that configuration of tables is going away anytime soon, a “process-
driven” approach to ERP means a broader understanding of how module configuration supports
a cross-module business process. SAP is currently upskilling all of its application consultants in
its own BPX curriculum. The end result will be called “process consultants” (see the video

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interview I posted with SAP BPM guru Ann Rosenberg from SAP TechEd Phoenix for more on
this transition and what it means for SAP pros.

Some would also classify Business Intelligence skills in this BXP skills mix, and I expect us to
see more overlap between the BusinessObjects community and the BPX community in 2010 as
these connections get made.

In sum: It makes sense to grapple with these skills now, rather than dismiss them as being tied
to futuristic job roles that don’t even exist yet.

Skeptics who think BPX means “overly futuristic” should consider this: “BPX skills” are a
factor on job interviews!

On a regular basis, I see BPX skills separating individuals from the crowd during the job
interview process.

It’s the ability to interact, rather than huddle in a cube, that sets the elite SAP performer apart.
It’s not about being an ace “hired gun” anymore. It’s about sharing knowledge and making your
team better.

So here’s the big question: now that we have a grasp of these skills trends, how do you put it all
together in one marketable skill set? And what happened to that 80/20 skills mix we talked about
earlier? Is it really 50/50 now? Let’s check it out.

C. Pulling it Together: Combine SAP Skills Generalization and Specialization

There is a healthy debate about whether the most marketable SAP skill set is a generalist or a
specialist. I fall heavily on the specialist side. The most successful independent SAP consultants
I’ve ever worked with all have focused areas of specialization. But to be fair, when it comes to
being a full time employee, there are times when having a broader SAP skills focus can be just
as effective.

I’m not going to settle that debate in this white paper. But here’s how I recommend looking at
SAP skills:

The best SAP skills combination is a core SAP skill combined with an edge skill that ties back to
that core.

Think of it as a “core and explore” model. The core skill stems from the depth of your overall
work experience and serves as your bread-and-butter area.

The “edge” skill is an emerging SAP skill area that might be a bit more of a gamble in terms of
its real-world immediacy. You can afford to take a gamble on the edge if you also maintain your
core. The edge is where you will find the best rates and add some “sex appeal” to your skill set,
but the core is your protection in case you get a little further out on that edge than the skills
demand will support in your region or market.

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Of course, it goes without saying that even the core skill should be updated with the latest ERP
6.0 and NetWeaver releases whenever possible. And in some cases, it’s good to have several
“edge” skills to play off of.

For example, a Basis person decides to chase SAP Retail because a friend said it was hot.
Retail configuration might be considered an edge skill in some cases, but unless it connects
directly to the core, it’s not a good skills extension. The two must be related to promote the
overall vision of skills mastery.

Here are some example of core and edge skills combinations I’ve run into recently:

Winning SAP technical skills combinations

CORE EDGE
SAP Developer SAP Adobe Flex and Forms Developer
SAP Developer SAP Mobile Development (with CRM Sales)
SAP Basis Specialist SAP Virtualization Expert

Of course, how we define “core” changes over time. I consider Solution Manager to be a core
(mandatory) skill for most Basis specialists in 2010. On the SAP development side, ABAP
Objects is becoming a must-have core skill for any serious ABAP-er, and on the Java side, Agile
development methodologies will become core also.

Winning SAP functional skills combinations

CORE EDGE
HR functional (payroll/benefits) SAP Talent Management and E-Recruiting
CRM functional (sales/service) CRM On-Demand and/or CRM Marketing
FI/CO functional EPM/BPC (formerly OutlookSoft)

Most of these examples are consultants I have personally worked with, with the exception of
CRM On-Demand.

Let’s say you have established your core skill and your edge skill. So what’s next?

BPX, “soft” and “consulting” skills become the “general” skills that you wrap around your core.

If you don’t have a good core and edge skill, the BPX skills are almost useless (I’ve met a lot of
good out-of-work business consultants who didn’t have SAP experience). The SAP skills (core
and edge) are the teeth that land you the interview, the BPX skills are the polish that get you the
job. Whoops—I don’t like to use dental analogies!

The SAP Career Formula for 2010 is:

Core + Edge, wrapped in “General” business/consultant skills.

Looking ahead to 2010, those “general skills” might well include BW/BI, which is starting to
become an area that all SAP professionals need to connect their skills to. I’ve had some readers
ask me if consulting skills are relevant if they are a full time employee. I believe they are. The

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best consultants are trusted advisors who are expert in empowering the teams they work on and
leaving them better than they found them. Internal employees should aspire to the same traits.

As for that 80/20 versus 50/50 skills mix debate, here’s how I look at it for 2010: if you are
currently in an advanced SAP role like the Enterprise Architects and Solution Architects we
referred to earlier, then the 50/50 techno-functional mix might be just right for you. The same is
true in some SME (small and medium size business) environments. Wearing many hats is
common on SME projects. Otherwise, I still like the 80/20 formula today for most “classic” SAP
developers, Basis types, and functional experts. But I like 70/30 in either direction better than
90/10, so that gives you some idea of where I stand.

Concluding Thoughts for Part One

We now have some guidelines that will enable you to form your SAP skills strategy in 2010. But
that doesn’t solve an equally important problem: now that we’ve established our skills, how do
we handle the second half of the career success equation, self-marketing? And, I’m sure many
of you are wondering, how do social networks fit in? That’s the subject of part two of our white
paper, which will be released separately.

About the Author

Jon Reed is an independent analyst and SAP Mentor who blogs, Tweets, and podcasts on SAP
market trends. He is the driving force behind JonERP.com, an interactive web site that features
Jon's SAP Career Blog and his podcasts for SAP professionals. Jon has been publishing SAP
career and market analysis for almost 15 years, and he is the author of the SAP Consultant
Handbook. Jon serves as a "PAC Fellow" with PAC's SAP Services Research Program, and he
is a frequent contributor to PAC's "Feeding the SAP Ecosystem" blog. Recently, Jon was
recognized as a Top Contributor for the SAP Community Network 2008-2009 in the Business
Process Expert Category. Jon’s Twitter handle is @jonerp.

This white paper was written for the SAP Community Network Career Center by Jon Reed. Any
reprinting or redistributing of this paper requires the express written permission of the SCN
Career Center.

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