Career in SAP - PS at the age of 42. Advice needed.

[Former Member]

Hi,

I need some suggestions as I am considering making career transition to SAP u2013 PS. I live in the US so I will be pursuing my career in this country. Hereu2019s my background info:

I am a PMP certified and ITIL V3 Foundation certified Sr. Project Manager. I am 42 years old and I have over 15 years of IT experience. Also, I started working on my PMI-Agile certification (PMI-ACP). I work as a consultant.

My expertise is in managing from small to large development and functional projects, process improvement, data management, data strategy, liaison between IT staff and business clients, process Improvement, Software Development Life Cycle, Risks and Issues management, Business Analysis, Software Requirements, Technical Solutions, Time Estimating, Work/ Resource Breakdown Structure, Project Scheduling and Budgeting, Strategic Planning and Solutions, MS Project etc.

Prior to project management, I had strong technical background in Data warehouse, data migration, Database architecture, design, development, performance tuning etc. primarily in Oracle and SQL Server, Business objects, UNIX etc. I have around 13 years of Oracle and Unix experience.

After discussion with several training institutions, they said that SAP u2013 PS is the best option to start SAP career. My questions are:

- Is it good idea to make a career transition to SAP at the age of 42 in USA?

- I am at a senior level of my career. Will I be considered an entry level if I start SAP career or will my prior experience be given some credit?

- My goal is to continue consulting for a few more years and then take a permanent (non- consulting) career. I want to stop travelling on the job. I know a few SAP professionals and they all have a travelling job. Are there good positions in SAP (Manager or director level) that do not involve a lot of travel?

- Other than SAP-PS, what other functional areas of SAP will be worth looking into?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[former_member184657]

Is it good idea to make a career transition to SAP at the age of 42 in USA?

It is never too late to start over or make a transition in your career. I know somebody who at 40 transitioned from a manufacturing area to become a BASIS consultant.

I am at a senior level of my career. Will I be considered an entry level if I start SAP career or will my prior experience be given some credit?

With your kind of experience and background, you will fit the bill of a Project Manager. Good knowledge in SAP PS will just be a "good-to-have" item on your resume.

My goal is to continue consulting for a few more years and then take a permanent (non- consulting) career. I want to stop travelling on the job. I know a few SAP professionals and they all have a travelling job. Are there good positions in SAP (Manager or director level) that do not involve a lot of travel?

Yes most SAP Consultants travel a lot. But it depends on the kind of organization you work for. A purely consulting company will demand frequent travelling. But if you work for a product company or if your company is the "client" then the travel is minimal.

Other than SAP-PS, what other functional areas of SAP will be worth looking into?

As I said earlier, you do not have to get your hands dirty with the various modules in SAP. For your experience you can oversee the work done by others. But yes, always better to have a good command in the module. PS module is one of the most robust and "complete" modules in SAP. It is probably the only module that is in some way or the other connected to all the core modules in SAP - MM, SD, FI, WM.... you name it.

So to sum up, if you have a great command over PS, then you pretty much know a thing or two (considering the oceanic size) in SAP.

pk

[Former Member]

Thanks for your response. Great points! Typically, travel jobs pay more so when I choose to stop travelling, then I have to accept a lower salary, which is OK I guess...

I will be signing up for training and certification in SAP-PS sometime soon...

Any other helpful suggestions for starting SAP career???

[Former Member]

OK. I am in an SAP forum and I am asking this since I have 13 years of Oracle Database experience as DBA, developer, data architect etc. Even as PM, I have managed some Oracle projects. Will my technical experience be beneficial in SAP or is it better to choose Oracle ERP as a career??

I hope someone can give an unbaised opinion...

Thanks!

[former_member184657]

Will my technical experience be beneficial in SAP.

Well, Yes to an extent. They are two different planets, with somewhat similar landscapes - if you know what I mean.

 Or is it better to choose Oracle ERP as a career?

That depends on you. What is your motivation to dive into SAP? What is it that is pulling you away from Oracle? Is it the urge to do something different? Is it the inclination to work on a different platform? Is it some kind of an investment for your future goals?

It is more of a personal choice IMO.

pk

[Former Member]

I wanted to get into SAP for many years now but something or the other came up and I stuck with what I am already good at i.e. Oracle, forms, reports, Business Objects, Unix, SQL Server, project management, business analysis etc. just to be safe. I did not want to risk anything new. I have been in Oracle for too long and I want to try a new platform.

Also, researching the job market in the US, it looks like there is more demand for SAP especially SAP-PS (which is what I am planning to do) and there seems to be a good long term career growth. There are a good number of companies that use SAp in the Milwaukee, WI (which is where I live). I have been reading about SAP, cloud computing, salesforce.com etc. for a few months now. Cloud computing is the latest buzz word now... It is good to be flexible in this market. This is reason why I wanted to change. Yes, you could say this is an investment for future goals...