This Week in SAP (#12)

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Once again I’ve been scraping the bottom of the SAP News barrel for you this week:

and check out my Twitter produce:

  • se38: “SAP beginnt mit Entlassungen in Palo Alto” (“SAP starts layoffs in Palo Alto”)
  • SpinAct: Folks from SAP layoffs can now sign-up on SpinAct and monetize their knowledge and expertise
  • thorstenster: @Blag What an absolute shame! No more Community Day –> TechEd loses at least 50% of its value. 🙁

SAP Inside Track London 2009

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Hacking Scala & Lift at SAP Community Day (courtesy of Nigel James)

Hacking Scala & Lift at SAP Community Day 08 (photo courtesy of Nigel James)

When Darren Hague and Nigel James spread the news that there will be another SAP Inside Track (SIT) held in London this year on April 4th, I was very quick in signing up. Especially after SAP’s announcement this week that the next wave of SAP TechEd conferences will be without Community Day, there is an even better reason to come and join SIT this year. And as Nigel put it on his blog:

One of the great benefits of these days is the networking and conversations with people in trenches.  In credit crunched times such as today these can be even more valuable than official training sessions and (dare I say it) certification.

For further details on the people involved, topics discussed and the usual logistics, go and visit the SIT Wiki page. In addition, you can also follow for updates: @SAPInsideTrack

If you have a closer look, you’ll spot a discussion about SAP Certification. I am hoping to provide some results of my ongoing online survey during this session. If you’re a SAP contractor and you haven’t taken part in the survey yet, please do so. If you know some SAP contractors, please forward the link on to them. We have a great opportunity here to provide SAP and the Community Network with some valuable data and the more people take part in this independent survey the better.

Hope to meet you there !

This Week in SAP (#11)

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My top SAP news picks of the last 7 days:

  • big SAP announcement of the week: SAP and Sybase’s cooperation on bringing Business Suite apps to all mobile devices. Good take on it (as usual) from Dennis here. I just can’t see the iPhone (yet) breaking into the corporate market on a scale similar to Nokia and RIM. There is also something inside of me that simply refuses to believe that a device that is upgraded and synced with a music management software (iTunes) is going to make it in the business world.
  • Computing UK interviews SAP Europe Chief Exec Jose Duarte. An honest, short and sharp interview.

Anyone for SAP Tweets?

  • chiprodgers: “Well done @mepmarcelo on Community Day Brazil last week! Super job of documenting the event too.”
  • njames: “I have got to say this is a great Press conf for playing enterprise buzzword bingo.” (on the SAP Sybase webcast)
  • fiskerton: “I am done with you ABAP Debugger, begone! And yet… you remain. And mock me with your unresponsiveness. Don’t make me log out of SAP”
  • jonerp: “Had interesting talk with major T1 SAP BI player today. They do offshore some SAP BI work but keep some onsite – needed for user buy-in.”

survey on Contractors and SAP Certifications

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As announced earlier today, here is the official link to the

“SAP Certifications for Contractors” survey.

Please note that (obviously!) the survey should only be taken by SAP contractors or freelancers, as this is my focus group.

The survey entails 17 questions and should not take you longer than 15 minutes max.

Please forward the link to this survey to all contractors and freelancers working in the SAP arena.

Overall goal of this is to support the aim of facilitating better implementations of SAP and increase Return On Investment (ROI). SAP is listening to the community and it’s our part to come up with ideas and constructive comments. Hopefully the survey results will contribute another piece to the “certification jigsaw” and improve the system even more.

coming soon: survey on Contractors & SAP Certifications

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Ever since the big response on Dennis Howlett’s “Should You Be Certified?” SDN blog post I felt that the implications of SAP’s certification push had not been identified well enough for contract and freelance consultants. The main reason for this is probably because there is not enough data to establish what this particular group thinks about the old or the new 3-tier SAP accreditation.
Why focus on SAP contractors?

It’s been my idea for a while now to do a survey purely for contractors and freelancers in the SAP arena. This group’s approach and its take on the topic is slightly different for the following reasons:

  • most of the time freelancers have to pay for certification out of their own pocket
  • market circumstances might dictate that certification is paramount to land your next assignment
  • they might use certifications to break into new SAP areas / modules, very often without any work lined up after the exam, as clients want people with experience who can hit the ground running.

In contrast to this, SAP consultancy firms and partners tend to educate their consultants in anticipation of upcoming demand. In the current climate, they might decide to send a dozen of their staff to SAP certification exams as they expect demand for products such as Business Suite 7 to pick up within the next 12 months, for example. Moreover, these partners can also offer sandbox systems or access to early adopting clients so their newly certified consultants can learn by doing.

End users certify their staff yet again for different reasons. In my experience the leading motive in multinational corporations is usually to establish centres of excellence with certified subject matter experts.

One last thing…

One last thing that I feel is important to mention: overall goal of all this really is to support the aim of facilitating better implementations of SAP and increase ROI. My intention is not to talk SAP certifications down. Far from it.

Coming up later today

The survey will be up later today. Some people will be emailed separately with a link to the survey, but the link will obviously also be posted on here. Please forward it on to as many SAP contractors and freelancers you know. SAP is listening to the community and it’s our part to come up with ideas and constructive comments. Hopefully the survey results will contribute another piece to the “certification jigsaw” and improve the system even more.

This Week in SAP (#10)

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Read and marvel in this week’s finding from the cool, leafy, green valleys of SAP-Land:

anything SAP related from the Twitterverse?

  • sapnetwork – “A Freshers Guide to ABAP and SDN: A Guide to all freshers entering into SAP-ABAP, also help them with some tips .. http://tinyurl.com/dhrphv“
  • mepmarcelo – “Community Day Brazil just started !!!“
  • jamesfarrar – “Apotheker: SAP 51pc CO2 reduction equals 60pc per employee by 2020“
  • @SAPMentors “Newsflash: You get 50% off SAP certification at all TechEd stops. Study up, as the test is not 50% easier 😉 Many stumble.”
  • @jonerp – “SAP (confirmed) buzzword change alert (ugh): NetWeaver BI is now NetWeaver BW again. The BIA is now the BWA. “Back to the Future!” “