An SAP Consultant ensures that your organization uses SAP systems best. Whether it is related to the SAP implementation from scratch or optimization of a running system, an SAP Consultant with expertise in the right domain can help you configure an SAP system that benefits the end-users.

There are over 300 individual solutions under the SAP ecosystem, including several solutions related to SAP S/4HANA and SAP Ariba. Many solutions have overlapping functionalities and require careful analysis and considerations to determine the right solution for your business. In addition, you will have to deal with many implementation challenges and coordinate with SAP professionals. Attempting to do it all by yourself or your internal staff may cause you to lose focus on your core business activities. That is where an SAP Consultant comes in.

This article will tell you in detail about the roles, responsibilities, and qualifications of an SAP Consultant. However, as the SAP ecosystem is enormous, typically, an SAP consultant chooses to specialize in a few specific areas depending on their academic background and competencies. In that aspect, we will focus our discussion on SAP’s procurement solutions and the roles and qualifications of an SAP Procurement Consultant.

Thus, whether you are an aspiring SAP Consultant looking to specialize in procurement or looking for an SAP Consultant to streamline your business’s procurement and supply chain needs,  you are at the right place.

SAP Consultant

An SAP Consultant is a professional expert in one or more specific SAP domains to examine, design, and configure SAP solutions for your business. The SAP Consultant designs and develops the system so the end-users find it compatible with the business’s specific needs and relevant departments.

Types of SAP Consultants

Typically, SAP Consultants focus on their specific areas of SAP solutions. However, depending on functionalities, there are four major types.

• SAP Basis Consultant: They primarily work with the databases and SAP servers, where their key role is to install and optimize the databases.
• Functional Consultant: They collaborate with the developers to create codes for ABAP and customize SAP solutions to match the client’s needs.
• Developer Consultant: They also do coding for Java and ABAP.
• Business and Sales Consultant: They typically work with SAP service providers and SAP partner companies. Their main role is to assist the sales team to convert leads into clients. After a potential client has their initial conversation with the sales team, the SAP consultants step in and discuss the detailed implementation plan and budget with the clients.

Why Do You Need An SAP Consultant?

The main task of an SAP Consultant is to identify the best SAP solution for your business and then help you optimize the design, development, and implementation process.

Let’s elaborate on this with a procurement-related example as procurement and supply chain are among those business departments that extensively rely on SAP solutions. Procurement is the process of acquiring goods and raw materials for your business. Depending on the business type and size, it involves several stages such as identifying suppliers through a competitive process, awarding contracts, managing transportation, and paying the suppliers.

Despite the general process being similar across businesses, the procurement process and complexities may differ based on the business type. The procurement activities and workflow of a car manufacturing company will not be the same as the procurement activities and workflow of a fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) manufacturer. The raw materials of a vehicle may arrive from over a hundred suppliers as it moves through the production and assembly line. In contrast, only a few suppliers may supply all the required raw materials for an FMCG.

SAP has designed its solutions with standard functionalities in mind. However, you will need to customize it for your business, preferably with the assistance of a professional and certified SAP Consultant.

However, identifying and customizing the solution is only one aspect of the SAP Consultant’s job. So let’s check out the other functionalities as well.

What Does an SAP Consultant Do?

There are multiple aspects of an SAP Consultant’s job duties. It includes everything from identifying business processes and solutions to developing the implementation, planning and managing projects.

Operational Tasks

The operational tasks that an SAP Consultant may perform to support the day-to-day business activities include:

• Helping end-users navigate through the system;
• Responding to queries from end-users and supporting any issue or question they might have;
• Training the end-users and internal team on transactions and reports;
• Preparing support materials, and how-to videos for the internal staff members;
• Creating user manuals and technical guidelines for documenting the entire process; for example, the order-to-cash cycle for the business departments;
• Incorporating the business’s credit management functionalities to organize the accounts receivable process;
• Streamlining the Accounts Payable (AP) and SAP Financial Accounting (FI) process and updating fiscal year changes.

Assistance for The IT Team

SAP Consultants often support the internal IT or MIS team in setup and configuring the ERP system. Companies that do not have an internal MIS team may outsource the tasks. Either way, an SAP Consultant needs to support the team members continuously. They usually carry out the following functions:

• Configuring organizational structure, such as designing SPRO or IMG transactions, creating a Plant under MM, configuring a controlling area under FICO, etc.;
• Making service requests such as uploading master data, vendor master data, or table entries;
• Performing OSDB migration;
• Enhancing and implementing updates;
• Testing service packs;
• Handling any integration issues;
• Fixing bugs;
• Implementing and testing SAP notes;
• Examining an organization’s existing computer systems to find improvement areas and suggest solutions to the management.

Implementation Management

In addition, an SAP Consultant can be in an implementation project and in charge of implementing the SAP module for a company going for an SAP implementation. In such cases, their role is to define the business requirement and set up the system by meeting with the client and documenting the business blueprint. The document states the existing business landscape and maps it to the future business environment in light of the SAP solution being implemented. Usually, the job posts that look for SAP implementation consultants, mention this task as “end-to-end implementation”.

During implementation, an SAP Consultant may also collaborate with SAP Solution Architects, whose responsibility is to orchestrate the whole SAP business process for the client and match the business requirements.

Project Management

Finally, an SAP Consultant can be a project manager, implementing a vast SAP implementation. For example, they can manage the project aspect of their module, including supervising personnel working under them, coordinating daily mandates, and managing deliverables. This usually happens in a cross-country implementation where the deliverables require using more than one or two resources.

How to Become an SAP Consultant?

Almost 80% of the global business transactions touch SAP in one way or another, and the number is likely to grow even further as an increasing number of companies are now switching to SAP from their existing ERP systems. Thus, there will be a steady demand globally for good SAP Consultants. Becoming an SAP Consultant is a step-by-step process. Let’s take a look.

Step 1: Bachelor’s Degree

Typically, any SAP Consultant position requires applicants to have a Bachelor’s degree. Although if you have extensive industry experience, it may be possible to land a consultant’s job successfully with an associate diploma or degree; however, in general, a Bachelor’s degree will open your door.

Although there is usually no specific requirement of subjects you must complete during your Bachelor’s, and many industry-leading SAP consultants come from business-related academic backgrounds, a degree related to computer science with several business courses will give you some advantage. Similarly, a solid understanding of finance and accounting will also help you.

Step 2: SAP Training Courses and Certifications

Once you have your Bachelor’s degree, you should focus on doing some training courses on the specific SAP domain of your choice. Depending on your competence and preference, you can aim for MM, Basis, SD, CRM, or any other functional expertise.

Initially, you can start with OpenSAP, an open learning platform from SAP, and then move to SAP Training Portal for more advanced learning and professional certifications.

• OpenSAP: OpenSAP is an online portal providing easy access to anyone interested to learn SAP as a beginner. The platform is free, and you can explore it as much and as long as you want. There are plenty of courses from almost all SAP domains.

For example, if you want to become an SAP Procurement Consultant in the future, a course that can help you is, “Procurement Innovation – SAP Ariba and S/4HANA in a Nutshell”. This self-paced course will introduce you to the procurement management process with SAP Ariba and S/4HANA.

• SAP Training Portal: After thoroughly exploring the OpenSAP portal, you can move to the SAP Training portal for advanced learning and formal certifications in your preferred SAP domain. A formal certification may add significant value to your career as an SAP Consultant. According to PearsonVue, 61% of the trainees who received a formal SAP certificate reported promotions or career advancements.

There are three certification levels – Associate, Specialist, and Professional.

SAP offers several resources for you to learn:

1. SAP Learning Site
2. SAP Learning Class
3. SAP Blended Learning Academy
4. SAP Learning Hub

There are two subscriptions for you to choose from:

1. Option 1 (USD 224): Online subscription with one exam attempt within 12 months.
2. Option 2 (USD 560): Online subscription with six exam attempts within 12 months.

Both of the subscriptions also include:

• Access to a selection of self-paced digital learning content on critical SAP solutions relevant to students, including Learning Journey guides.
• Access to expert-led live sessions and social learning experiences in SAP Learning Rooms.
• 60 hours of hands-on practice in SAP Learning System Access.

You will find all the domains from the SAP Training center. For instance, if you want to specialize in SAP S/4HANA procurement as a consultant, several courses are available from different levels. After doing the earlier courses, you can go ahead with the certification exam – SAP Certified Application Associate – SAP S/4HANA Sourcing and Procurement.

Step 3: Industry Exposure

Before starting your role as an SAP Consultant, one more important step remains – gain relevant experience. If you want to become an SAP Procurement Consultant, working in the procurement and supply chain department in a business environment is an excellent idea. Try to search for those. You can also try for internships. Similarly, if you want to become an SAP FI Consultant, you should aim to get relevant experience in the financial and accounting departments. Such experience will help you gain solid ideas about real-world business problems.

Step 4: Master’s Degree

A Master’s degree is not a mandatory requirement for your career as an SAP Consultant. So why would you consider one? That’s because it will add value in specific scenarios. Perhaps, you have a B.Sc. in Computer Science, and now want to get academic knowledge in the business domain, then an MBA will enrich your profile significantly. Similarly, when you have done a BBA, a Masters in the MIS is likely to boost your profile as an SAP Consultant.

Step 5: Consulting Experience

After having the relevant education and training, you can start looking for consulting positions such as SAP MM or SAP Ariba Consultant. Once you gather several years of industry experience and build a strong network, you may also consider working as an independent SAP Consultant.

Step 6: Alternative Career Paths for SAP Consultants

After getting years of SAP domain experience under your belt, there are many things you can do under the SAP ecosystem, such as:

• Presales,
• Sales,
• Project Management,
• Solution architect,
• SAP Support Manager,
• SAP Trainer,
• SAP Content Writer.

How Much SAP Consultants Earn?

As we said, there is a steadily rising demand for SAP Consultants worldwide. Interestingly, many SAP domains let you work remotely as well. Thus, no matter where you are located, you will always be able to take advantage of remote work.

Typically, an SAP consultant makes between USD 75,000 to 180,000 in the US, depending on their experience, and the SAP domain they are working in. More specifically, the average salary for SAP MM on-site consultants is USD 93,000, according to Salary.com.

On the other hand, if you consider working remotely, you may earn between USD 35 to USD 90 per hour as a remote SAP Consultant, according to job positions available on Upwork and Flexjobs, two of the most popular websites for remote working opportunities.

Concluding Note

Millions of businesses are using SAP solutions, which are growing further. So your opportunities will be sky-high if you have the proper determination. The career offers a lot of flexibility and options to explore to find the right track and aim for the proper certifications. To enrich your profile and promote yourself in the industry with a dedicated author page, you may also consider writing articles related to your SAP domain.