Top Challenges Faced by Every SAP HANA Consultant

Everyone has been talking about benefits of SAP HANA consultant since its launch but as each coin has its two sides so as benefits there are even drawbacks of being a HANA consultant.

The new Hot Cake of IT Industry is SAP HANA. This is because as applications assimilate business logic and the exceptionally performing database layer created by employees. The situation demanding for an alignment of the business sector and information technology is where SAP HANA is remembered. Today the era of information technology leads us to a scenario where every business wants to come online and increase their customer database, large business groups and e-commerce websites totally rely on SAP HANA for their large data handling and performance.

Lacking Basic Knowledge of SAP

Many of the SAP HANA consultants lack various basic knowledge of the software that can be utilized for beneficial to the company. SAP represents for systems applications and products in data processing. The most important tools such as sentimental data processing and predictive capability that in turn help the company to accelerate business analytics and processes. The consultant must be aware and become agile of the processing capabilities of the massive amount of real-time data by in-memory database technology.

Insufficient Educational Qualifications

The minimum strong base which covers all modules along with mandatory minimum qualifications must be achieved to become a successful SAP HANA consultant. The basic graduate degree in human resources or information technology or even graduation in business management would easily suffice the basic requirement of the career for the business consultant. The basic training is necessary as SAP implementation is complex in its nature. One can get training in SAP HANA so that he can develop native software in SAP HANA module. It is necessary to become certified associate as it provides special edge over others and differentiates your skills in the job market. Generally, it is not mandatory to get SAP certifications but it is mostly recommended as if one if you don’t have any experience in that field. Getting certified makes you suitable than on the other hand of having no experience.

Inappropriate of Understanding of SAP HANA

The very important quality that makes SAP HANA best among all is its ability to process structures data from the relational database which may be either SAP or SAP data or even applications very rapidly.  SAP HANA consultant must very aware of the data replication capability of SAP HANA which mainly depends upon mainly 3 styles as in the source of the data which is divided into log-based, trigger-based and ETL-based. The relocated structured data is directly transferred into memory. The data storage in-memory makes access very quick and applications using HANA can be accessed in real time.

SAP Consultant Fails to Replicate with the Prominence of SAP HANA

The people who are planning to choose SAP HANA consultant as their career path must be very efficient and diligent as SAP HANA. SAP HANA is the most suitable platform for developing and deploying future generation’s applications and analytics. The advanced capabilities such as text predictive analysis, spatial text processing, and virtualization of data with simplified application development are the key feature which SAP HANA consultant must be aware of.

SAP HANA Consultant Roles

The senior SAP HANA consultant has the very sole authority of rolling out the technical and functional aspects of HANA solutions. Whole responsibility for integrated planning, providing support and implementations for SAP HANA based solutions ranging from SAP LT Replication Server, SAP ECC, SAP Data Services, and SAP Business Warehouse (BW) are backed by SAP HANA consultant. On various scenarios SAP HANA consultants even look for SAP BI/Business Objects in large and complex environments.

Repetitive Job

The fascinating Part of any SAP consultant is the designing part. This designing part lets one understand the deep functioning of any company, what are the challenges faced and designing the solutions and finding ways to counter problems. The most tedious part of SAP consultant is the repetitive software implementation which can even last for months and years whereas the designing part only lasts for 3 to 9 months.

Intensive Experience Requirement

The only thing that craves SAP market is the module specialization. The question that one is repetitively asked is his specialization module and the number of years of experience in it. If one aims at experiencing different roles and functions in different industries, then SAP consultant as a career is not for you. One needs to be focused on the only single domain which after some time becomes boring and painting job after some years of experience.

Highly Volatile Market

The SAP is very expensive ERP platform in complete IT industry, but as being packed with features for every business ranging from Agric product business to a high scale manufacturing factory. Therefore feature for every business makes it so demanding but one thing that must be kept in mind as SAP HANA consultant is IT industry is one, not the fast-changing industry that there must be some alternative that is cheaper and as effective as SAP HANA. The only requirement has arisen of any alternative, and then it would severely affect SAP industry to the core and considering SAP HANA consultant as through career.

Most of the multinationals are managing the most of the technical business from fresher graduates and this impending for most SAP HANA consultants to start getting accustomed to crises of being out of the market.

One needs to be the jack of all with a master of one

There may be an instance arise that customer wants to install an XFT product, even that requires an SAP consultant, so over customer gets together with the consultant and try to understand the requirement of the product. This leads to the consultant to think about the requirement of the product that is best suitable for thru customer and necessary changes required for SAP system to be made for the installation of the new XFT file. This makes an SAP consultant a mixture of expert, a project manager, and even a programmer because as the site goes on SAP consultant also needs to give hand to hand for the project.

What does an SAP ERP Project Implementation look like?

It mainly covers through five of its phases which include project preparation, business blueprint, the realization of the project, final optimization, going live and providing support.

Project preparation: In this phase before implementation of SAP systems in any new business and overview of sessions are held to provide a greater understanding of the basic features and components are provided and functionalities of SAP system that can assimilate with their business are provided.

Business blueprint: this process involves mapping in SAP ERP database of the company existing business processes and functions. A path is mapped over the ground of system on how business would work on the SAP system is provided. As in for example if any company was using work order to produce its products will now be called as production order in SAP ERP system.

Realization of the project: in this process system is manipulated to under requirement of the business model, in this process massive data is collected from customers, vendors, the production capacity of the machines and even employees. The second sub-process of this system is testing of data, which is run several times to remove any possibility of errors.

Final optimization: the final product is known as production system of SAP ERP.This phase involves where business process heads will enter live and actual data over the system. The final SAP ERP system testing also takes in this phase even considering end-user training also takes place at very this process.

Going live and providing support: this is the most important phase of the whole project when while system completely handover to the user and he goes live and enters data, which might not go as smooth as when he gets stuck in the system. The main role of SAP consultant comes over here when users can contact him get their problem solved at that very time and ensures all problem encountered are solved by him and system runs smoothly.

How can one step foot in the SAP HANA World as a Consultant?

If you are aiming at to become a part of a company that is on verge of implementing SAP ERP system, then at the very moment one must strive upon becoming the part of the implementation team. One would gain wide invaluable experience going through all the phases of implementation. The most expensive asset one would gain by being the part of the implementation team is his in-depth knowledge and learning about all comprehensive business process of your working area.

One must attain beforehand all the certification necessary for SAP HANA consultant so that points are left unturned to become part of the implementing team. This certification would help one to stand different from the crowd.

Why is Consulting the most Rewarding Career?

The initial phase hard work of SAP HANA consultant is compensated by the most rewarding part- it ultimately offers great value addition to your profile as per the in-depth knowledge of the business profile. After the implementation process is complete then there exists very less work as most of part of the work involves troubleshooting and implementing new functionality to the system database. The best that one can get is if he becomes part of the implementation team as most companies with large database have their in-house help desk for SAP ERP functionality then one would be only part of troubleshooting team.

The consultant as has started his career as an in the very initial phase of implementing the new system the company a9ims at taking maximum benefits off his experience by compensating him in the best way, but this changes might be not visible in first few years as they progress and gain experience so does their pay scale rises.

SAP consultants are often on the road – there’s no denying that. Particularly in the crucial phase of a project, it is often helpful to be right there with the customer. On the other hand, there’s remote access to the customer system anyhow, which means it’s almost irrelevant where you’re located – you could be at the customer site, in the office, or even at home, if (for example) you have a child who’s sick and can’t go to school. There are many factors that dictate how much you’re actually away from the office. It depends on the project, the customer, and also how you personally work best. At XFT, one has consultants who spend three or four days a week at the customer, but even there are others who spend only five or six days a month away from the office. And they all have their private lives!

Nevertheless, traveling is the biggest disadvantage of being a consultant – if that’s the way you see it. A huge advantage is that you always find out about new things: new companies, new industries, new application areas. That’s exciting, and you’re constantly learning. Many of the things are maybe not directly related to your job at first glance, but in the long run, they enhance your profile and add to your education. And an SAP consultant never gets bored!

Conclusion

Simplification is an advantage that can be more closely associated with SAP HANA. This is particularly significant since it reduces issues with reconciliation and in its place promotes one source of truth. FI and CO related transactions are saved as a single line item, this improves the dependability of the data across functions.

Cross-functional transparency, an advantage of SAP HANA enables a consistent and dependable workflow. The capability to access information in various system areas and work cross-functionally enables further the real-time insights and analytics into the data across the organization.

Digitalization is the last enabler identified by HCL. The career of SAP HANA consultant is like a ladder which grows as one rises upward in the scale of time and experience.