How I started in SAP
How did I get into SAP S4 HANA in the first place? That’s a good question, similar to many leaps and bounds in human existence it was purely by accident. Here’s something that you may realize if you have spent any time in the tech consulting world. SAP is enormous, it is used by most fortune 500s but the average person has not heard of it. If you are interested in a career in SAP, keep reading below. Also feel free to reach out with any questions.
That takes me back to my sophomore year of college when I first started I didn’t know what SAP was.
I was a mechanical engineer in college, as if it’s not obvious by my atrocious writing style. Yes, I apologize in advance my entire website is extremely poorly written. However, I expect you to learn something despite the lackluster writing ability. I applied to nearly 100 internships for my sophomore into junior year summer and I was rejected by all 100. I gave up and assumed I wouldn’t get an internship since I applied to every single mechanical engineering internship available. It is not common for a sophomore to get an internship as that’s typically reserved to juniors.
My First SAP Offer
After all hope was lost I received an email from Johnson & Johnson asking if I was interested in a 6 month Co-op. I was ecstatic, however by that time I had applied to well over 10 positions at Johnson & Johnson. I didn’t even know which role the offer was referring to. That’s when I got a call from a man I later realized wasn’t working for Johnson & Johnson but for a top tech consulting firm.
This is how it all started, the hiring manager happened to also be a mechanical engineer. He decided to move into the fast growing business & technology integration sector. I was happy to take any job (especially one that paid way more than my summer at the local hardware store) so that’s how I got into an SAP career.
Little did I know, I was about to discover a massive world of business & technology integration. This industry is a multi billion dollar a year industry. I learned first hand how enormous an SAP project is since there was nearly 800 people working on implementing a single software SAP ECC.
My first thought on SAP was “Ohh so it’s just like a point of sale system that I use at a local business but for an enterprise”. The consultant looked at me as if… yeah not quite but sure. I debated with other co-ops after reviewing an ENORMOUS tech arch diagram whether users even log into this so called ECC component. Other co-ops figured ECC was just a technical backend that no one logged in to. Wow I happened to be correct ECC can be logged in to & legacy systems as well.
Where My SAP Career Took Me
Fast forward to nearly 10 years later and I have been advising and implementing some of the largest fortune 500 companies on how to best implement SAP S4 HANA specifically in the Master Data Management space utilizing SAP MDG. I learned all about the data organization structure & governance models, technical configuration, functional understanding of development objects needed on top of SAP (RICEFWS), project management, estimation, best practices & more.
I spent a lot of nearly sleepless nights early on in my career learning everything I could on SAP. Many nights were spent reading configuration guides, blogs, help website, learning hubs etc. I hope my journey into this complex and challenging space can make it easier for you!
If you want to learn more about master data in S4 HANA MDG check out the following post:
https://techconsultinghub.com/2022/03/01/sap-s4-hana-mdg-overview-part-1/