Can the shortage of SAP professionals affect your organization?

Discover the impacts of this scenario and how the shortage of SAP professionals relates to SAP S/4HANA conversion projects. 

"There's a vacuum in the SAP job market, and this vacuum is created by a structural flaw in the training of the SAP workforce," says Ulisses Pereira, creator of the #OMundoSAP project.

Ulisses talks about the impacts of the shortage of skilled labor in the SAP market and how each part of the ecosystem can be impacted by this issue, illustrating possible solutions. See the interview published on baguete.com below:

"Since I intensified my efforts on the #OMundoSAP SAP career project, I've been talking a lot with the SAP ecosystem, which consists of SAP professionals (users and consultants), clients, partners, and people from SAP itself. As a result, I started sharing job openings I see on my LinkedIn timeline daily. There's a common characteristic to almost all job openings: Senior, Mid-level, Senior, Mid-level, Senior, Mid-level, Mid-level, Senior, Senior, Senior, Senior.

THINK WITH ME: IF PROFESSIONALS AREN'T HIRED AS JUNIORS, THERE WILL NEVER BE MID-LEVEL OR SENIOR ROLES. Due to this seniority vacuum, any slight market upturn causes recruiters to panic. And the problem is getting even worse, because THE MIGRATION TO S/4HANA is knocking at our door. 2025 is almost here.

Who is to blame for this situation? Everyone! Each one has their share of the blame, let's understand: 

SAP PROFESSIONALS  👨💻

1. Those outside the job market: 

First, those who have no idea what SAP is (they don't know if SAP is for eating or for putting in their hair).

Second, those who know a little about the potential of the SAP job market. 

Do not accumulate unnecessary material in stock.

Has no idea about SAP.

The vast majority of professionals have no idea what SAP is. Consequently, they completely ignore what the SAP job market is and the true employment potential of having an S.A.P on their resume. Those who work with SAP live in a parallel world that is extremely difficult for others to access. Practically an impenetrable bubble. Non-SAP Groups: Accounting, Tax, Administration, Production Engineering, Purchasing, Sales, Logistics, Supply Chain, Tax, etc. In short, any group related to a business area covered by SAP. SAP Groups: These are essentially SAP job groups.

There are several existing groups; within these groups, there are professionals who have already entered the market and many people who completed SAP academies but couldn't find placement. This group hopes for an SAP job opening for those with academy training but no experience. In the "Non-SAP" groups, the vast majority have no idea what SAP is. 

They know the potential of the SAP market. 

This group is the most "dangerous," I say dangerous because they are making the most mistakes during their journey, since the first group hasn't even started theirs. Ignoring SAP's existence cannot yet be considered a mistake, or can it? 

The two main mistakes are: trying to skip steps and thinking short-term. 

I see people skipping steps, and in their eagerness to quickly enter an SAP career, they invest money in an academy. I know the story of someone from Niterói who told me they spent 15k on an SAP academy but didn't have a university degree. We know that in startups, formal education is less demanded, but in the traditional market, it's still a recruiter's checklist item. No degree, no entry! Leonardo Ternes Santos, CEO of LTSConsulting, told me another story very similar to our colleague from Niterói. The professional spent 21k on a BASIS academy without having basic knowledge of databases and operating systems. And, of course, couldn't find placement. 

They are already in the SAP market 

Those already in the market also make mistakes, and the main one is thinking that working with SAP is like a public service career and that there's stability. You sell knowledge, and the market wants to buy good professionals. 

Today, the market seeks more well-rounded professionals, aligned with SAP's new strategies and technologies. Those who stick only to the "basics" will affect their employability and feel it in their pockets. 

2. SAP PARTNERS 💻 

Here we can list service partners and education partners.

There are few exclusive license and subscription partners, but they are not relevant to this analysis, because selling licenses and subscriptions does not require consulting labor. 

3. SERVICE PARTNER ⚙️

Trainers (minority)

In my opinion, it's what everyone should do. Training professionals and encouraging employees to focus on their self-development, always! I was fortunate to have worked for companies that prioritized employee training. 

Larger consulting firms usually have training programs, but few manage to consistently maintain training cycles for new SAP professionals. They usually start out of desperation because there's a shortage of professionals in the market. An SAP partner company that acts as a trainer knows that a professional will hardly provide any return in less than 6 months on the job. And this is a cost for the company that is often cut at the first downturn in project sales. After all, labor cannot be stockpiled. The consultant is there, occupying a desk, earning a salary whether there's a project or not. 

I won't say it's easy to maintain this training flow. An S&OP process for services is quite complex. It's not easy, but it's necessary. 

 
Consumers (majority)

The consumer partner is one of the biggest culprits for polluting the SAP market. That is, they consume the labor market by seeking consultants at lower rates, consequently with lower qualifications. Few consumer consulting firms maintain a quality team of consultants. 

And for those that do have a quality team of consultants, how long will they be able to maintain this same business model? How long will the market supply enough mid-level and senior consultants for them to maintain quality and their premium pricing? Quality is expensive! And quality in quantity is even more so. Ignoring the time and flow of consultant training limits the growth of any SAP company. 

EDUCATION PARTNER 📚 

Courses, courses, courses, courses, courses, selling courses is all I see. The professional education market is large and very lucrative. Just look at SAP itself with its SAP Learning HUB. I haven't found an education partner in my research that cares about the career of an SAP professional. This applies to both official and unofficial partners. Just "pushing" training and selling the newest course on the shelf is all that matters. 

SAP CLIENTS 🤝

Medium and Small.

They are held hostage by the current situation. 

It's expensive to maintain a dedicated SAP professional for low work demand. Nevertheless, specializing your team of key-users is important and can reduce costs with SAP consulting firms. Of course, take good care of your key-user, because if you don't, you'll easily lose them to a consulting firm. 

Not specializing and holding onto them is much worse, in my opinion. A great key-user with some consultant knowledge is very useful for any client. 

Large

There are large SAP clients that have more consultants than many consulting firms, but I confess that in 11 years I haven't encountered one with an explicit consultant training program. Of course, many users and key-users have migrated to IT and are now SAP consultants. The famous 'homegrown talent' truly works wonders! I've met excellent consultants who were 'developed' by clients. What I haven't seen is any structured process for this. In fact, it's often a practice not encouraged by the business area, as they would 'lose' a hands-on professional to IT. 

I took the opposite path, moving from IT to the business area, and trying to hinder a professional's growth within the company is one of the biggest factors of professional demotivation. If there's room to grow, let them grow and shine. If they can't grow internally, they will grow externally, into the market. Now, the example of HT Solutions from the Herval group (an SAP client) comes to mind. The Herval Group specialized so much that it has its own consulting firm that serves both SAP and non-SAP clients. This model is an exception, not the rule. And I also don't know how easy it is to transition between companies within the Herval group. 

 
4. SAP ITSELF 💡 

In Brazil, SAP is still largely unknown to the general public, whether this was a deliberate strategy to cultivate a more exclusive group or not, but the reality below the equator is very different from that in Germany. I remember it was at the 2017 PKOM (SAP PARTNER KICK OFF MEETING) that SAP presented its brand kit to the masses. Soon after, we started seeing the SAP brand in airports, in widely circulated magazines, and on TV (SAP ads were constantly running on Globo News).  

SAP rose to 16th place as the most valuable brand on the planet. How much will being the 16th most valuable brand in the world bring more professionals to the SAP market and into an SAP career? If SAP is not seen as an option by this demographic, the problem of a shortage of mid-level and senior professionals in the market will persist. If juniors don't enter, we won't have mid-level and senior professionals. 

INCENTIVE PROGRAMS FOR SAP PROFESSIONALS 👨💼

SAP has programs to encourage professional development, especially for those already in the career. The amount of information and content generated by SAP and the SAP community is immense. Those already in an SAP career can greatly benefit from the volume of content. 

Training initiatives primarily come from partners. I myself participated in the SAP Sales Academy; right now, there's another training session for prospecting new clients. The sales area is very active at SAP, because without sales, a company cannot sustain itself. 

For the consulting area, training is outsourced to partner companies. To ensure quality, the partner company must be authorized to sell and implement a product. Partners only obtain this authorization if they have a minimum number of professionals with the technical capacity to implement, pre-sell, and sell the solution. Without this, there's no SAP authorization. Seals of excellence like SAP Recognized Expertise also require partners to have a minimum number of certified consultants. Ultimately, to remain compliant with SAP's requirements, one must follow their guidelines.” 

Now, with this information, we ask just one question: The market is facing a serious labor shortage issue; what could happen to clients who need to migrate to S/4HANA at the last minute? 
Labor shortage = Higher prices. 

Discover a new migration option:
https://mig-now.com/conteudos/blog/melhor-solucao-atualizar-erp-sap/ 

Reference link:
https://www.baguete.com.br/noticias/08/11/2022/xp-migra-para-s4-hana 

Contact Us

‍