What managers of SAP-departments must consider, is what kind of tasks their department are facing. Is the department basicly supposed to support the existing SAP-setup, perhaps with minor development, or do the company have ongoing larger projects in the pipeline.
The answer has influence on the choice of employees that should be hired in the department. And no matter what, it will bring in more than one dilemma.
The supporting department
The department which only goal is to support the existing setup will (anything else equal) require less ressources. A supporting department simply cant feed a broad range of employees, each with their own area in SAP. SAP contains many different modules, and in the supporting department its not economical adviseable to employ one person under each module. This bring in the need for SAP-consultants with a broad profile. Ie consultants who can support more than one module.
Consultant with a broad profile are hard to find, because external consultants often specialize in one module/area. And their interest is to keep on building on their special area, to get even deeper knowledge. Its not popular - for external consultants - to go in the direction "know a little about a broad range of modules".
Its adviceable to try to find/steal corporate consultants from other companies, who already have a broad profile. The dilemma is that we would like to hire experienced broad consultants. Ie consultants with minimum 5 years of SAP-experience. And these consultants think that their should improve their own market value by focusing on fever modules, and deeper knowledge. Because thats what the market is requesting (mostly). Ie these broad consultants will demand that they can get education, and get tasks, to be able to archieve their personal goal. And this is actually not what the department has interest in.
If its impossible to hire a former external or corporate consultant, its an option to get someone from your own business-organization, who has the interest in shifting jobtitle to SAP-consultant. Its a risky chance to take, and often a desperate solution. The first dilemma is that the trainee is not able to support the organization from day one. The trainee needs at least one year of experience, and a lot of SAP-courses. And very often - after this period - the trainee realize his own new market value, and decides to leave the company, going for a career as external consultant.
Fortunately its rarely that a SAP-department is only supporting. There are often some kind of development, or at least small projects. The lesson is: "Recognize which projects the department will face in the future. Search only for consultants that are sincerely interested and motivated by these projects. Otherwise these consultants will simply leave the company again, after a short period".
The project-oriented department
The projectoriented department is often in need of ressources. Ongoing new projects/implementations require many ressources, experienced consultants, project managers and on top this; there is an existing organization with a setup, to support. In these organizations its typical that there's a lot of pressure on the department. Projects a just waiting to be finalized, and the topmanagement has little patience.
The best solution would be to have one specialized consultant to cover each modul in SAP. As an example: One for FI, one for CO, one for SD, one for MM, one for HR, one for PP, one for PM, etc. Perhaps more than one person under each module, as there is a support-task also. And then some ABAP-programmers. Someone controlling authorizations. Finally there might be some Cross Application areas which require special attention; like Document Management, Variant Configuration, or whatever. This was at least the case in year 2000.
Today SAP has developed a lot of new "add-ons", like CRM, XI, APO, Portale, BW, etc. Each new areas which often would require more than one person to cover. And SAP keeps groving.... At least the small companies; can no longer afford to many corporate consultants. And the medium-size company are beginning to "feel" the cost of this departments size.
Also the larger projectoriented companies have difficulties in attracting qualified consultants. These organizations are in direct competition with consultancies using external consultants. Ie they have to offer an extremely attractive "package" for the employee, ie. high salary, education, company car, stockoptions, etc.
However the SAP-demand has been high for years, and this is a story of everyday life, for many companies.
But couldn't we break this cycle? Do the projectoriented organization really need so many experts? When do the expert-consultant really use his deep expert knowledge?
Lets try to calculate the requirements of consultants knowledge in a another way. Its imaginable to assume that the broad consultant actually could do 90 percent of the implementation/project tasks as the expert-consultant could do. The last 10 percent could be purchased from external consultants ("body-shopping"). With a few broad consultants a company will have several consultants to cover several modules. Both supporting and developing. The broad consultants can be kept highly motivated as the door is open for using external consultants, which can inspire, educate and motivate them.
The total costs of this kind of organization is much lower. The flexibility and access to new knowledge is much higher. The risk of loosing indispensable employees are no longer a issue. The company can afford to have some traines under "education" to secure a continuous access to SAP-consultants.
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