suggestion !!

[Former Member]

hello friends,

I am working in an end user company

as an ABAPer plus basis and some functional stuff

also. Now my total exprence is nearly one and half

year .I have good option of getting good knowledge

in all domains here but i have to choose one of

them as my core .

I started as an ABAPer and worked in MM,PP,SD and

FICO modules from reporting,bdc,scripts point of

view ,along with it i got a good functional

knowledge .For last 8 months i am looking towards

basis stuff also like transports, installing sap

,applying patches to sap and database ,roles and

profiles.

At this stage i think i should decide where to land

in sap ,kindly make your points on it

with regards n love

jase

[Former Member]

Keep in mind, always do what you enjoy and are good at. That is a good suggestion, but what when your thinking is "well its a job , I Can do anything" in that case then look at the cnoditions of all the Roles.

ABAP

This is the easiest way into SAP for many, its not tough but you need to keep abreast of the new developments. Also think that the competition will be HUGE.

FUNCTIONAL

Need good business knowledge plus config knowledge. Competition is less than in the ABAP field. But you gotta know your stuff. Unlike ABAP where you can code somehow, this is where you gotta know what can be done and what cannot be done.

You will be making decisions and giving spec to the ABAPers etc.

BASIS

Well basis is basis. Good specialisation but remember a project might need 10 abapers 5 functional and 2 basis, so always less jobs, but longer lasting jobs.

Many ABAPers grow into Functional proffessionals . Most ABAP is now outsourced and Basis work too. Functional is where the client wants to hire good people , this is what makes a project good / bad etc.Not that ABAP need not be top class but technical errors are fixed quickly, functional errors are costly.

So if you are thinking whats best long term wise as you enjoy anything then I would say Functional is the way to go.

In fucntional MM/SD is very much in demand.

FICO ,everyone needs that, no industry can do without FICO.

PP demand is less than MM/SD not all companies go for that.

So between FICO and MM/SD I would say FICO.

I group MM and SD together as some fucntions overlap, if you can do 1 you can do the other. Of cousre when you go deep its totally different.

So there if yuo had me choose something I would say FICO functional. and then MM/SD functional.

My parameters were , Jobs/Money/Project /competition etc.

YOU have to make the decision.

Don't forget , if you enjoy doing something then thats not a job for you, you will become good at it if you'r not since you love it and will always be in demand.

Hope this helped.

Regards

Message was edited by:

Sandeep Bhavsar

[Former Member]

hai sandeep,

ya what you said is making me feel good , "what i love is what i m at best" , functional

keep in touch n ping me at <b>No mail posting allowed - Moderator</b>

regards n care

jase

Message was edited by:

Alvaro Tejada Galindo

[che_eky]

Sandeep,

Saying that most ABAP is now outsourced is a big generalisation to make.

It's absurd to say that clients want to hire only good Functional people and live in ignorance of their ABAP and other development needs.

Give good Functional specs to poor developers and you could spend the rest of a project fixing technical errors, rewriting programs and overhauling the complete development architecture. Your costs will soon add up and outweigh any Functional errors.

Che Eky

[Former Member]

hi sundeep

i working as a abaper for last 4 months.pls sugest how to prepare means i will write good codeing and analizing any thing in sap abap like that.

[ChrisSolomon]

They are pretty much what you have gotten a "taste" of so far. Now, you have to choose how far you want to go down "which" rabbit hole. These are all pretty large generalizations, but you will get the idea I hope....

-ABAP (aka. coder, developer, programmer, gearhead, code monkey, mushroom)

You will be a developer. You will become deeply entrenched in code and programming models/methodologies/etc. You will learn the necessary tables related to the functional areas. You will also have to stay abreast of the ever changing world of development. You might be an ABAPper today but tommorrow you might need to be up to speed on Java, Webdynpros, etc. and then 2 days later, you will have to pick up the next greatest and latest thing. It is a continuous cycle. You will fill your toolbox with a vast array of tools and your job will be to know how, when and where to use them.Your functional knowledge will be somewhat limited. You will get to know the processes and "understand" more of the functional side, but you won't get too much deeper than that. And when anything doesn't work as expected, you will blame the BASIS folks. (haha)

-Functional (ie. the "business" guy/girl)

Pick an business area and become an expert in it. That is your lot in life. Choose HR? You will become familiar with every process from hire-to-fire, know benefits inside out, be able to configure all manner of time and payroll, and anything else related to an employee. Choose FICO? You best come in with a CPA tag or a deep knowledge of accounting....because it gets much deeper. Choose MM? Your world usually gets even more specialized. In many functional areas, you need to be not only deeply knowledgable in the processes themselves BUT also in those processes as they related to SPECIFIC INDUSTRIES. An oil companies production and inventory processes will be largely different than a retail company's and different still from an auto manufacturer. Oh yeh....and along with knowing processes and having the functional knowledge in your area, you will also have to know all that SAP can handle via configuration for your area. And when SAP can't handle something directly via configuration, you will get to come up with wonderful and magical and often times, impossible and ridiculous, solutions that you will then turn over to the developers and BASIS folks to actually make happen.....and if they happen to complain to you or laugh at your suggestion, you can just tell them that the request/command came from "the business" and watch them shuffle off in defeat. grin

-BASIS

Sounds like you have already learned much of this....install, patch, upgrade....wash, rinse, repeat. (haha). Your task is to make sure all the physical boxes are playing nicely together while also getting new pieces brought into the loop without causing grief. Yours is largely a job of babysitting...making sure everything is running smoothly via monitoring, tuning, etc. and when it is not, you must then quickly find and fix the issue(s). In addition, you get to move things around (transports) between systems as well. If you are a smaller shop, you might also be tasked with database administration as well as security (user mgmt, access, etc). And finally, when something breaks, you will blame the developers. 😃

As you found, no matter which one you choose, you do kinda get a peek from time to time into the other areas, but your usually to busy/focused in your area that you won't have the time to get to deeply involved in the others (as well as your own organizational structure may prohibit it). I can't really help you (nor can anyone else) in picking among the many options above. It will largely depend on you. I HIGHLY suggest you pick the one you most enjoy because there will be days when you ask yourself "how did I ever get myself into this". haha

[Former Member]

Hi Jase,

well my suggestion for you is: try to concentrate or focus on stuff you are most interested in. This would be the area where you will have most success. Your decision shouldn't be made on the reason 'where to earn most money'. You must be 'lucky' with what you are doing. So try to figure out the point/area of your most interest and try to go that way.

regards

Siggi