Rules for Success as an Independent Consultant: Industry Tips from Gerrit Pruis, Managing Director, SAP Solutions at B2Bworkforce

One of the great accomplishments in the consulting field is becoming a successful independent consultant. In terms of hands-on ERP roles, an independent consultant is the pinnacle of achievement because you have achieved a level of skill that allows you to be perceived as a true "value-added" expert on ERP projects.

Being an independent consultant is not easy. You are responsible for your own marketing, billing, and career development. It's not easy to know what to be trained on when you consider the vast array of products in today's enterprise application suites. In addition, you will be expected to be the "subject matter expert" (SME) for your aspect of the project, and you may find yourself without as much support as the full-time consultants and end user employees working alongside you.

B2B Workforce is changing that paradigm by providing its independent consultants with ongoing project support. Our Premier Partner relationship with SAP America provides us with a full suite of SAP systems running in our SAP Solutions Center. We can also get our consultants access to advanced certification classes - we trained 14 consultants in 2007 on NetWeaver 7.0 upgrades. And we do all this while keeping our consultants independent and able to make their own project choices.

But even with strong field support, anyone who wants to succeed as an independent consultant needs to have a well-thought career plan. B2B Workforce has always thought of itself as career advisors to independent consultants, and we do our best to align the best projects with the career paths of the independent consultants we work with.

For this edition of the newsletter, we sat down with Gerrit Pruis, the Managing Director of SAP Solutions at B2B Workforce, and asked him to share his "rules for success" as an independent consultant. With seventeen years of R/2 experience and thirteen years of R/3, Gerrit has compiled his rules from more implementations than most of us will ever see.

For more, click here

HR Updates

If you opted for the Flexible Spending Account benefit for 2008, you should have, by now, received your debit card and may have even already used it a couple of times.

This month, ADP announced the rollout of an Auto Substantiation process. Merchant systems are evolving to support real-time, automatic substantiation of FSA debit card purchases. Advanced systems are coming online with an increasing number of retailers that are able to identify those items that are eligible for purchase with FSA funds at the point of sale. This eliminates the need for participants to submit their itemized purchase receipts to ADP along with a form after the purchase has been completed. You may have been asked to do this already this year. However, beginning with purchases going forward, this plan now has the ability to match your plan specific copay to your transaction amount at participating doctor offices with no further substantiation (or request of receipt/backup by ADP) as well as approve those items purchased a retailers who have rolled out compliant systems at participating pharmacies and grocery stores (see attached Q&A for list). It is important to remember that the IRS will still require you to hold onto those receipts even if you don't have to provide them to ADP for substantiation purposes and that the healthcare provider's office and/or retailer must be a participant. Otherwise, you may still be asked to submit receipts/backup of your purchase. The rollout of this process is great news and will provide ease of use for participants.

Frequently Asked Questions about Recent Changes for the Health Care Account Debit Card

To read the frequently asked questions: Click here

SAP in the news

SAP Retires Overlapping BI Products: Click here

Conformia Development Operations Management Named SAP-Endorsed Business Solution Conformia's Solution is Now Integrated With SAP Solutions at the Platform, Application and Business Scenario Levels: Click here

SAP and Intel Partner on New Appliance: Click here

Jon Reed interviews Thomas Woelfel of Click Technology Group on SAP Logistics Upgrades, presented by B2B Workforce. "A Senior SD Consultant Shares His Keys to Success as an Independent SAP Consultant."

What skills do you need to perform an SAP Logistics upgrade to ERP 6.0? And what does it take to succeed as an independent SAP consultant? To get a better feel for the functional skills needed to succeed on the ERP 6.0 platform, Jon sat down with Thomas Woelfel, a veteran SD consultant, and got his take on how the SD module is evolving. Thomas gives his view on what SAP Logistics consultants need to know in order to keep pace with SAP. A major focus of the podcast is on the role of the independent SAP consultant on project teams, and Thomas' recommendations for success in that role.

To listen Click here

Ask the SAP Career Expert

Q:What do you think is a better career path, J2EE programming, ABAP, or SAP NetWeaver?

JR: I get this type of question a lot and what I find strange about it is that it puts at odds several technologies that actually work best when used in conjunction with each other. SAP's NetWeaver platform actually involves all three of these areas, so going forward, the best SAP developers will be the ones who understand how to bring these skills together into a "hybrid" skill set.

Let's start with the J2EE side. There are a lot of J2EE programmers out there who have no exposure to SAP or any other major ERP package. To the best of my research, when you add enterprise-level ERP skills to a Java-based background, your salary or rate should jump up at least twenty percent. When you think about it, this makes sense. Companies are willing to pay a premium for those who can work in a higher stakes environment, and working on production-level ERP systems is certainly higher stakes.

Perhaps we could say in the past that SAP was not a state-of-the-art J2EE environment, but I don't think that's true today. SAP's Composition Environment (CE), the focal point of much of its Enterprise SOA development, is a Java EE 5 environment. So at this point, a seasoned J2EE programmer does not have to choose between Java and SAP. If you get on the right project, you can do both

Click Here to read the rest of Jon's answer to this question and more.

Oracle in the news

Oracle Acquires Web Application Testing Software Assets From Empirix: Click here

Oracle offers clustering for Linux: Click here

ORACLE REPORTS Q3 GAAP EPS UP 30% TO 26 CENTS, NON-GAAP EPS UP 23% TO 30 CENTS Database and Middleware New License Revenues Up 20%, Total GAAP Revenues Up 21%: Click here

Health Tip from WebMD

How to Survive Spring Allergy Season

Top allergy experts answer the 10 most pressing questions on treatment, care, and prevention of spring allergies.

By Katherine Kam
WebMD Feature

Spring is in the air. Literally. From weeds to spores to grass and tree pollens, the warm weather is almost here, driving airborne allergen levels through the roof. That means your allergy symptoms -- the sniffling, sneezing, and itchy eyes -- are in overdrive and apt to stay that way for months.

What can you do? WebMD asked some of the country's leading allergy experts to weigh in with answers to your top questions about spring allergies. Here are suggestions for helping you find some much-needed relief this season.

How do I know what I'm allergic to?

There is a world of spring allergens out there. How can you possibly figure out which one is playing havoc with your eyes, nose, and throat?

"The allergy skin test is the quickest, most inexpensive, and most accurate way to find out what you are allergic to, whether it's mold, grass pollen, or a type of weed," says Neil Kao, MD, an internal medicine physician specializing in allergy and immunology at the Allergic Disease and Asthma Center in Greenville, S.C.

Talk with your primary care doctor or an allergist. Both can give you an allergy test. The skin is pricked slightly to allow an allergen, such as grass or mold, to enter the outer layer; after about 15 to 20 minutes, the physician will check for a reaction, such as hives or redness and swelling, which will identify the specific allergen causing your symptoms.

Once you know your trigger, keep an eye on allergen levels in the air using WebMD's Pollen Counter during the spring season, and avoid your triggers as much as possible -- the first steps in keeping your allergies under control.

To view the full article on WebMD.com: Click here

FUN STUFF

Here is something cool to break up your day and test your IQ. Be ready with your cursor when you activate this program. You only have a few seconds to answer each question before the next one pops up. It's really fun and shows just how smart you really are or think you are!!!!

• IQ Test