Queries with SAP.

tiles

Hi,

I've come across a lot of jobs in my area that state experience needed with SAP e.g SAP Finance Support Analyst. I've done some research on SAP but still not exactly sure what it is. I know SAP makes it easier for a business to run more efficiently but if I say done a training courses in SAP would I be able to use SAP to complete day-to-day work using SAP s/w or would I be trained for a more I.T related role as in maintaining SAP s/w for the finance department. Say with the Finance Support Analyst example would this be a finance or I.T role?

Damien360

We are attempting to implement SAP in our place . The best way to describe it is an integrated stock and finance system plus a bit more.

Our current setup has one database fir stock, one for finance, one for engineers handling that stock. And each business under the group has each of these without knowledge of any other business interaction. Nothing is integrated. All of it stops in IT but they just act as overseers without anyone really seeing how it all links.

With SAP, we hope to join the lot into one database that gives a better overall picture of the business. One account for one customer across all interactions by each part of our business. Therefore you can drill down to see profit/loss per customer. When you have many companies under one group as we do, it makes sense to implement SAP.

SAP is developed by the company of the same name. It takes a lot of effort to integrate the old systems in to the new and implement the change without disrupting the existing business.

It is not in smaller business due to cost.

Hope that helps

oscarBravo

SAP is huge, expensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. I was a certified SAP consultant about 15 years ago, and it cost my employer a lot of money to get me to that point. I don't think it's something you can realistically pick up on your own, I'm afraid.

COYW

oscarBravo wrote: »

SAP is huge, expensive enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. I was a certified SAP consultant about 15 years ago, and it cost my employer a lot of money to get me to that point. I don't think it's something you can realistically pick up on your own, I'm afraid.

This doesn't bode well for me. I am starting to work with it now. I have been told that there are a fair few rules to follow when creating add ons with it. The interface must be in a particular style and format, for example.

oscarBravo

To be fair, it's a very long time (in IT terms) since I had anything to do with it, so maybe it's easier to pick up now. I'll be curious to hear how you're getting on. Have you had any formal training on it?

COYW

oscarBravo wrote: »

I'll be curious to hear how you're getting on. Have you had any formal training on it?

Nope, no training at all but we do have a staff member who is fully certified in it. However, I suspect that his certification/experience with SAP is from the business user perspective, as opposed to the developer perspective. I will keep you posted on it as I progress.

COYW

Just started working with this recently and I have to say that I am finding it very rigid. From what I have seen so far, it is a Stock and Finance system primarily. It doesn't really strike me as a product that is suitable for factory floor software.

Development wise it is very limited in terms of UI controls, with very strict and peculiar naming conventions, fonts and programming in it is proving to be a chore in comparison to the world of Winform, WPF and the like.

oscarBravo

Yup, sounds familiar. It's a somewhat easier transition from midrange (S/38, AS/400) where I grew up, where your entire UI was defined by full-screen panels of 80x25 characters on dumb terminals. I can't imagine trying to transition from a decent GUI development environment.