SAP for Not Yet Techies

"Computer Careers: A Hot Skill for High Tech Jobs -- The Current #1 Enterprise Resource Planning Software Package"

by Richard Stooker, President Info Ring Press and author of Secrets of Changing to a Computer Career

SAP R/3 is the latest package of enterprise resource software

SAP is a German company that produces the top ERP software package. Basically, enterprise resource software is intended to be total software solution packages for running large businesses. SAP stands for something significant in German.

Large businesses do a lot of different things, and therefore have a lot of different computer career software needs. They want to be able to buy one package that does everything from keep track of sales orders, to payroll, to manage inventory, to spit out their end of fiscal year tax return – and SAP is trying to fill that need.

To give you a better overall picture, here are the various modules of SAP software:

PP – Production Planning

MM – Materials Management

SD – Sales and Distribution

FI – Financial Accounting

CO -- Controlling

AM – Fixed Assets Management

PS – Project Systems

WF -- Work Flow

IS – Industry Solutions

HR – Human Resources

PM -- Plant Maintenance

QM – Quality Management

SAP and all other enterprise resource software (such as Peoplesoft, Baan and Oracle) are hot as computer careers.

However, it is impossible for SAP programmers to design software that covers the needs of every single large business.

Every business is different. They manufacture different products. Their employees have different titles. Inventory control is quite different for cars than gasoline, for bushels of corn than software.

Therefore, every SAP package must be extensively adapted to each client

And since businesses are not static, they change, the software will not stay the same for long. It must be tweaked, revised, cut and expanded to meet the ongoing needs of the business.

So, essentially, skills (and jobs) with it come in essentially two categories. Actually working with the software as it stands, and developing applications for your particular business.

ABAP is the programming language used to make those changes to the SAP packages.

The bad news is that all this SAP training is expensive

At $10,000 to $20,000, most of it is paid for by companies training their employees on the computer job in the new software packages. Employee training is in fact one of the largest expenses for a company purchasing this or any similar ERP software. It’s not easy to find (or pay for) if you are not already in the loop.

The good news is that many more books are available to teach you this than is true of other ERP software

Of course, they cost $40-$50 or so depending on your online bookstore discount, but that’s a lot less than $10,000 to $20,000.

It also helps to have experience in as many of the above business areas as possible. Nobody can have extensive experience in all of them, of course, but the more overall business experience with a major company you can say you have, so you do at least know one end of an inventory control system from the other, the better off you are. Because not all the answers are going to be in the software.

Therefore, it would be to your advantage once you know it to look for work within the industry or industries in which you have your experience

If you’ve been a junior banking executive and you apply for work with a toy manufacturer, they may doubt your ability to design software to meet their order tracking needs.

Once you acquire skill and some experience in SAP R/3 though, you have a very marketable commodity for the right company or for becoming an independent consultant in this computer career.

Next: ABAP/4

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