SAP Career Questions for B2B Workforce, August 2008 Edition
What are the hottest SAP technical skills?
JR: My ranking in last month's newsletter of the top SAP functional modules was well received, but technical SAP folks felt a bit left out of rankings. So for this edition of the B2B Workforce Consultant's Newsletter, I decided to rank the hottest SAP technical skills. Brian Trout, National Sales Director for B2B Workforce, was kind enough to ewreview my opinionated rankings and add a few select comments of his own.
Before I get started, I want to make one disclaimer: when I call a skill "hot," it means that there must be a decent level of demand for this skill on project sites NOW. Therefore, many of the eSOA tools, for example the Composition Environment (CE), which may be important skills to have looking ahead, are not included on this list because they are not necessarily "hot" now. On the other hand, there are many SAP technical skills, such as core Basis and ABAP, that are still in demand currently, but are not likely to be very hot as we move ahead. So, to make this "hot" list, a skill has to be in demand today, but it must also be "forward thinking" as we look ahead to the SAP skill sets of the future.
With those disclaimers out of the way, let's have a look at what I consider to be the hottest SAP technical skills, ranked with the hottest first and so on. Note that this is not intended to be a comprehensive list, so if I missed something you are wondering about, feel free to email me with your questions.
Oh, and one final thing: I realize that very few SAP technical folks can span all of the skills below. SAP technical work spans programming, database management, system administration, security, and other areas. So feel free to disregard things on this list that do not tie into your specialization. And yes, functional SAP professionals can benefit from adding in some know-how from these skill areas as well.
1. BI/BW/BO - There's not much question that BI in all its current flavors is the hottest SAP technical skill on the market today. There are more than 1,000 BW related job openings on Dice.com now, and the interest in BI products is strong enough that some analysts have even called it "countercyclical," which is a fancy way of saying that the spending on BI continues even as we endure a sluggish economy hampered by the high cost of energy and the subprime lending crisis. I'm including Business Objects (BO) in this category, though in fairness, these are separate openings currently. It's fair to say that the vast majority of BI-related openings are technical, so this is a good area to have in your toolkit, whether you are BI-focused, or just including it in a broader technical skill set.
2. Solution Manager - Solution Manage is interesting, because if we do a Dice.com search on the phrase "SAP Solution Manager," we get more than 4,000 listings, which is quite an impressive amount, though it includes some offbeat results. However, if we search on the job title field only, we get only 14 results. Therefore, Solution Manager is not yet a focal point for most consultants, however, as a tool, it is gaining traction because there are few SAP activities that Solution Manager does not touch on. Solution Manager is heavily implicated in upgrades, business process management, post-go live process monitoring, and many other SAP vital SAP functions. True, not all SAP customers are running Solution Manager, but this is changing by the day, and we can expect this tool to become a key part of virtually all SAP installations within a couple of years.
Brian Trout had a useful distinction about which aspects of Solution Manager might be mandatory versus optional: "It should be pointed out that since SAP has mandated the use of Solution Manager in order to gain access to the OSS Notes system and to issue Product Keys to install new software, it is really going to be a necessity going forward for Basis consultants to have at least basic experience working with Solution Manager utilities," says Brian. "The full market adoption of the complete Solution Manager component suite is still open for debate, but certainly setting up and managing the SLD (System Landscape Directory) environment will be essential for all Basis consultants to become proficient in." I liked Brian's distinction between core "must learn" Solution Manager tools and enhanced components to consider adding down the road."
3. NetWeaver Portals - You can call it Enterprise Portals (EP), or SAP Portals, or use the current official name NetWeaver Portals, but whatever you call it, Portals has become a key skill area for many SAP technical folks. One thing we know about Portals is that it will never make the top of this list. The reason? The SAP Portal is just one of many ways that corporate users can access SAP information. And with the proliferation of many kinds of mobile and handheld devices, with "thin client" or web-based access to SAP, we can anticipate that SAP Portals will never be the only game in town when it comes to SAP system access, and this will keep a bit of a damper on the overall Portals demand. There are different aspects to Portals skills, from installation and security to customization. We see a lot of custom Portals development work, and it's good to keep in mind that this custom work involves a combination of SAP tools (like Web Dynpro and iViews) as well as mastery over Java-based programming techniques.
Brian Trout had a helpful comment about Portals skills and the significance of Java-related expertise over ABAP when it comes to the Portals stack: "If you break down the SAP Portal product architecture from a skills perspective, the dividing line is around those who can operate on the Java side of the ABAP/Java stack," says Brian. "For example, Portal developers with Web Dynpro for Java experience are still at a premium over those with general PDK (Portals Development Kit) and ABAP back-end integration skills. From a security perspective, having distributed Java-based applications tied to the Portal creates much more complex SSO (Single Sign On) procedures for EP Security Consultants to contend with, and there are far fewer EP Administrators with experience in complex Java Web Dynpro SSO scenarios, so that's a great skill to have." Brian skipped ahead here and gave away part of my number four answer, SAP Security skills, so let's continue on with that.
4. SAP Security - SAP Security is one of those steady areas that may never be the hottest, but it continues to have strong relevancy. In fact, when we look at the expanding needs for "identity management" throughout SAP's product line (including Portals and BW), and when we consider the continuing importance of overall enterprise security, we know that SAP Security skills are here to stay as a key part of a technical SAP skill set. No, SAP Security has never supported as many focused specialists as many of us thought, but as a tool in the technical toolbelt, it remains a winner.
Brian had a good point about how SAP's Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) suite, now part of the SAP BI/BO product line, will also continue to fuel demand for security-related SAP skills: "After the acquisition of Virsa in 2006, SAP Security skills continued to be in demand as the Virsa product line is now called GRC. The new GRC 5.3 has seven security/compliance tools and will begin to have vertical industry specialization. The Identify Manager is not part of GRC, but you are dead on that this is going to be hot, as it provides for SAP-centric management of all IT landscape security users who have access to corporate Master Data stored outside the SAP ERP platform. As a side note, GRC is packaged and sold separately from SAP ERP, as SAP's product line and reach into the IT landscape grows."
5. NetWeaver XI/PI - I could have put this higher on the list, and perhaps soon XI and PI will climb. We know that PI (Process Integration) is the new name for the tools that many still refer to as XI (Exchange Infrastructure), depending on the version of SAP being run. So why isn't PI higher on this list? For one thing, we have to remember that SAP is a late entrant into the middleware game, and many SAP customers are invested in other middleware solutions and aren't ready to go "all SAP" when it comes to application integration. We also know that PI will gain more momentum as it fully matures, and more SAP customers decide that standardizing on SAP NetWeaver is the key to realizing the promise of an SOA-based Enterprise Architecture. XI/PI is one of those technical skills that both Basis and ABAP folks can get involved with, from different angles. However, because XI/PI has connections to many of SAP's Java-driven components, a pure ABAP programmer will not be as successful in this area as an ABAP/Java "hybrid" who can easily move from IDOC and BAPIs to Java Objects and XML.
6. MDM - I am impressed by the number of current MDM job requirements I am seeing. While it's not accurate to say that this component is "on fire" - and we must remember that most SAP customers must pay extra to get MDM going - MDM is definitely a tool on the rise. Because of MDM's importance to many integration scenarios involving both eSOA and Business Objects, MDM should remain on this technical "hot list" and could perhaps rise higher. My current check on Dice.com indicated 131 SAP MDM jobs. Of course, these jobs vary greatly from overall architecture to BW/MDM integration, and not all of them are deeply technical. Many involve BW know-how, again driving BW-related skills needs higher. Some good news for ABAP folks: like BW, MDM is much more ABAP driven, so the ABAP-MDM connection is a good one to pursue.
7. SAP Mobile Device Work - We're seeing all kinds of work linking SAP to mobile devices, whether it's sales force automation via SAP-BlackBerry integration, or shop floor related work connecting SAP with handheld devices and bar code scanners using SAP's AII (auto-ID) infrastructure. Much of this work revolves around SAP's NetWeaver Mobile component. This mobile development and integration work may still be more of a niche focus than a tool for most folks to add, but I expect that to change. The increased mobility of the workforce and the general desire to extend SAP into new areas to capture data and increase visibility is going to be a continual theme. So, this is a another good area to be moving into.
Honorable Mention: here are a few more technical skills that are emerging as very appealing skills to have on the resume, but are not yet fueling huge consulting demand:
Guided Procedures (and all of the latest SAP Workflow tools) Surprisingly, I can't put SAP Duet on this list…perhaps Duet is just too simple to require much consulting support, but there's not even a trickle of real demand here yet.
We'll revisit this list down the road and see what's climbed and what's fallen.
I'm a little confused about the value of SAP configuration skills. Sometimes you seem to say they are important and sometimes you say that they are fading. What gives?
JR: Excellent question. It's true that I have been a little bit contradictory when it comes to the subject of SAP configuration skills. Let me see if I can do a better job of clearing this issue up. For most SAP functional consultants, the ability to "configure" functional modules is at the heart of their required skill set. A different way of putting it: historically, without configuration skills, you couldn't succeed as a functional SAP consultant.
That fact is still true. However, as early as 1997, I wrote about the "pros and cons of SAP configuration skills." The reason? I felt that the narrow emphasis on configuration skills was taking away from the pursuit of overall excellence as a consultant. In more recent years, I have warned that configuration skills are going away, and yet that's not really true - yet.
I think the reason I give mixed messages about SAP configuration skills is because I want consultants to understand that getting by simply on configuration skills is not going to cut it anymore. There are a few reasons for this, including automated tools that are making configuration less labor-intensive, as well as pre-configured components. The main reason, however, is that companies are expecting consultants to have the industry know-how and business process expertise that goes along with configuration expertise.
But don't take my word for it. I recently heard from a reader who summed up this current skills predicament nicely. "It's very much true that you must look beyond SAP configuration as a core skill, although I have experienced difficulties in getting SAP contracts without this core skill," says Mark. "I have found out in less than two years that configuration skills are a bit overrated. As you correctly point out, understanding a company's specific business process and being able to support this process fully is the 'in demand' skill to have."
Mark went on to explain how he has set himself apart from other consultants by moving beyond a limited focus on SAP configuration. "I made the successful transition from supporting standard SD/MM to a more specific version tailored to a company's needs," says Mark. "I believe this will help me to get future SAP roles, as in a short time, I have become quite good in supporting business processes and advising the customer on best practices in their industry."
Mark hit the nail on the head there, and his broader approach is the one I recommend. In truth, the best SAP consultants have always been devoted to developing their overall consulting skill set, their industry know-how, and their full life cycle implementation skills. But it's true that for many years, some consultants have been able to skate by simply on deep configuration skills, sometimes jumping from industry to industry and not sticking around to see an implementation cycle through.
I expect that to change, and that may be why I sometimes come off as overly dismissive of configuration skills. I am not trying to question their importance, but I don't want the readers of my columns to make the classic mistake of assuming that what the market will pay for today is the same as what the market will pay for tomorrow. Go the way of Mark's recommendations and you should be just fine.
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