The SAP Consultant Handbook [Paperback]

The purpose is; "We wrote this book because we believe that there are many people who can make a real contribution to the SAP field . . ." (p65). And they let the cat out of the bag on page 30; "The best way to get into SAP is still to be in the right place at the right time . . . the next best way is to . . ." (read the book for yourself). The real secret to becoming an SAP consultant is on pages 72-73.

There is a recurring theme of knowledge transfer and training throughout the book: "A professional with clear-eyed business knowledge . . . a knack for teaching . . . and empathy." (p21) " . . . but the most successful pay attention to the `soft' communication skills involved in project management, training, team-building and knowledge transfer." (p37) "The key phrase now is `knowledge transfer'" (p 56) "The Queen's English" (p69) ". . . the ability to express what you know . . ." (p69) ". . . think communication skills PLUS." (p76) "References count more for SAP candidates than in most other sectors of business." (p85) "You may find it necessary to educate the client . . ." (p92) "Those who have done and can teach SAP should be paid as much or more than when they are doing, but will not be." (p114) ". . . a transfer of knowledge is the greatest service a consultant can provide." (p135) ". . . consultants who are not certified are finding themselves at a disadvantage." (p145) "You may lag longer than you wish on a given assignment, but there could be gold waiting down the line for you if you take advantage of that lag time to . . . learn." (p159) "We do believe that strong communication skills and a solid business understanding are necessary for all who succeed in this business" (p192) "Continuous career improvement?" (p229, these are the final words of the last chapter).

Welcome to Germany. I trained some German SAP guys in London many years ago as R/3 was just coming out. Not in R/3 but in project management and software consulting skills. A word of caution. Go big. At least initially. The Germans have a love of scale and scope that is reflected in their industries. Their finances. Their software paradigms.

Your doing skills are a function of your being skills. In other words, what SAP can do is a function of what the Germans are. Engineers. And so, when it comes to reengineering, you can't go past SAP. Actually, Enterprise Resource Planning. Which is a subset of Enterprise Project Management. In other words, by the time you restructure the organisation to function on a project-by-project basis, something that is extremely difficult in a large organisation, but very profitable for a multibillion dollar company, you will have sorted out the enterprise resource planning. This is why SAP stresses the concomitant reengineering that is integral to any SAP implementation. This explains the SAP storm. Directors finally saw a business return, both savings and higher profits, from their IT systems and they went for it. The benefit for the Board was that they regained the agenda from the techies. By rolling in SAP into their IT systems, directors were rolling out the techie agenda from the board. They finally found a way to connect business sense to IT spend.

The authors stress the importance of Implementation experience throughout the book. And implementation experience is about Delivery, which is a function of who you are. Or as the authors put it; "Who are you?" (p17). This partly explains why it is so hard to become an SAP consultant. You have to be the `right person' in the right place at the right time.

My criticisms are thus: The font is too small.

In conclusion, this is a book for the Pro by the Masters in the field. Even the contributors are among the best in the business. If you think it's easy giving career advice, try it sometime. The authors are to be congratulated for their honesty. This book gets a gold medal.