We find that many people have heard of SAP but have little knowledge as to what it is or why employers are looking for people with SAP expertise. This brief article should go some way in demystifying SAP. If after reading this article you have more specific questions including what area of SAP is right for you to specialize in then please email us on chak@integraservices.co.uk

SAP is the world’s largest business software (or Enterprise Resource Planning software) company with over 43,000 customers worldwide. It has come a long way from its humble beginnings back in 1972 when five German engineers looked at creating business software which updates itself in real time enabling a company to see immediately what is happening within its organization in an instance. The company they founded was called Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing.

The SAP software has evolved over the years adding more and more functionality based upon best business practices for each business process. These business processes are offered as ‘modules’ so for instance the SD module which stands for Sales and Distribution deals with a company’s sales cycle from customer order capture to delivery to invoicing. MM or Material Management deals with the movement of stock through a company’s supply chain from procuring products from the vendor to stocking and dispatching to its customers and everything in between. The most important thing about these modules is that they are seamlessly integrated with one another to build up a complete and integrated solution. There are many modules (also known as core modules or R/3 modules) in the SAP suite including

• SD Sales and Distribution
• MM Material Management
• PM Plant Maintenance
• HR Human Resources
• FI Financials
• CO Controlling

In addition to these R/3 core modules there are ‘new dimensional products’ which are have been developed to integrate with SAP and non SAP solutions. These include:

• BI Business Intelligence
• APO Advance Planner and Optimizer
• CRM Customer Relationship Management

In addition to modules and new dimensional products, SAP have created 21 industry specific solutions (known as IS solutions) which are designed around the needs of a particular industry e.g.

IS Oil
IS Utilities
IS Banking
IS Retail
IS Automobiles

These industry solution specific offerings can be very different to the standard modules so if a company wants to implement an industry specific solution then they need to employee consultants who know the specific SAP industry solution.

A company purchases the SAP software and licenses having decided which of the modules/industry/new dimensional products they wish to use.

The software is installed by a system administrator who is trained to install and maintain the SAP software and its communication with the database which holds the underlying data (ie Oracle database)

The SAP solution comes pre-configured meaning that in theory a company needs to merely set up master data (e.g. material, customer, vendor, pricing records etc) in the SAP system and start transacting on the new system. This however rarely happens as all companies are different in some way so normally the standard settings are copied and modified as per need.

The modules are implemented by functional consultants who analyses the requirements of the business and configures the SAP system accordingly. If a requirement cannot be met by the changing the settings of the module such as the need for a new report, new screen layout or interfaces between SAP and existing systems then new code will need to be created.

The SAP code is known as ABAP (Advanced Business Application Programming) and requires a programmer (commonly referred to as an ABAPer) to make the changes requested. These changes are normally outlined on what’s called a functional spec which is usually written by the responsible functional consultant.

If a company is implementing SAP for the first time it normally hires the services of a consultancy firm. The firm then implements the SAP system to meet its customer’s requirements in a series of steps.

These steps are normally part of what’s call a methodology.

A typical methodology would be:

1) Project preparation
Determine the project team both from the business and from the consultancy firm, its location etc.

2) Business blueprint
Conducting workshops to gather requirements from the business and come up with business blueprint document which outlines what the system will perform once configured. This document should be signed by the relevant parties to ensure that all everyone concerned understands what is to be achieved by the implementation.

3) Build
Configuring the SAP system as per blueprint including ABAP developments so that there is a working solution.

4) Go-live prep
Loading master data into the system, end user training and final preparations for go-live.

5) Go-live
The day the system is switched on.

6) Go-live support
Supporting the system once it’s gone live to ensure that any issues which my come up are resolved speedily. These are the general steps of a SAP implementation which would be the case for any major IT implementation project. As you can imagine with the breadth of SAP’s offerings and the number of companies which use SAP there is a great deal of demand for those who have knowledge in SAP all across the world.

There are four types of SAP roles:

End user As SAP is business software then there needs to be end users who have been trained In using the software for their day to day business. So for instance a sales clerk would be trained to enter orders into a SAP system, a warehouse person to goods receipt stock sent by a vendor into the SAP system, an accounts person checking that payments made to vendors or to be received by customers are being done in a timely manner.

Consultant A consultant trained in a particular area of SAP may be employed by a consultancy firm or the business itself to implement a SAP solution

Support Support roles are those normally where the SAP solution is has been implemented and there is a need to deal with end user queries about further enhancements, resolving issues preventing an end user from performing their task etc.

Contractor These are individuals who offer their services to end user companies or consultancies that do not have the relevant SAP resource in-house so need to look to the open market for those specific skills.

SAP roles will take place in two types of business environment:

End User These are basically companies which are not consultancy firms whose business model is to go and implement IT solutions. These are companies which has SAP in order to support their business be it manufacturing, retail, services etc.
Consultancy These are companies whose business model is to implement and support SAP implementations
If you would like to know more about SAP Implementation and benefits, please follow the link which will provide you customer success stories. http://www.sap.com/uk/about/success/video/index.epx

(Disclaimer: This link will take you to SAP Official Website, Our company has no obligation towards the contents of the downloads).