Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Beginners
Beginning your SAP career is an exciting time, but it can also be very overwhelming. Like any
technology or new career, there is a steep learning curve that can feel insurmountable.
The goal of this blog is to concisely give you three major concepts to focus on when starting
your career
As a SAP beginner, you need a basic understanding of business processes, SAP acronyms and
project concepts. I first learned about SAP and ERP's (Enterprise Resource Planning systems)
while in school at Grand Valley State University. The SAP Alliance business program included a
mandatory ERP course. Before fumbling through SAP transactions, we were given a framework
of common business processes. For example, to understand how to process an invoice, you
must first understand the purpose of invoices and where this step fits in the overall order to cash
process. We also needed some key SAP and project terms to get a foundational understanding
of what's involved in a SAP project and the key components of the system.
1 - Business Processes: If you have little or no
exposure to a functional area, you first want to start
with understanding the business processes that flow
through SAP. Also keep in mind that most processes
are cross-functional and go end-to-end, meaning
they pass through many departments in an
organization. Even if you are in a technical role, you
need a general understanding of what business
drivers are behind your role. You may also find it
valuable to invest in business/or SAP textbooks
specific to your functional area. As you dive in to
SAP, remember to always focus on how technology
drives the business. Focusing on streamlining
business processes can avoid creating unnecessarily
complex technical design and avoid creating waste in
the system.