SAP Professional Fundamentals (Coursera)

You’ll explore SAP professional consulting roles and discover what technical consultants, functional consultants, and other professionals do. You’ll investigate the wide range of skills consultants need to have, for example strategic thinking, business process analysis, systems and design thinking, and understanding data, as well as effective soft skills, communication and relationship management. You’ll explore various planning and project management methodologies such as Waterfall, Agile, DevOps, and Cloud. Plus, you’ll start to get a feel for the whole SAP journey, from engaging with the customer to deploying a solution.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

- Explain what is meant by the SAP ecosystem and the value it brings to customers.

- Describe what different SAP professionals do and how they engage with customers.

- Understand the core and soft consulting skills that are both in highest demand, and frequently not taught in classroom environments.

- Describe a typical SAP engagement and how key professional skills are used at each stage of the SAP Implementation Lifecycle.

- Describe key roles with whom an SAP professional typically collaborates.

Course 1 of 7 in the SAP Technology Consultant Professional Certificate.

Syllabus

WEEK 1

Introduction to the SAP Ecosystem

In Module 1 you will be introduced to the SAP ecosystem and explain how it helps businesses solve problems and achieve their goals. The SAP ecosystem includes SAP products, people, partners customers, and many others who work with us to build the SAP platform. SAP software is at the heart of the SAP ecosystem. You’ll learn how SAP software is used to drive the flow of data and information across organizations. SAP is all about helping organizations become intelligent and sustainable. You’ll find out more about our customers and see how SAP puts these goals into action for them. You will meet SAP professionals from across the ecosystem and get a flavor of what it is like to work with SAP. You will come to understand the skills required to operate as an SAP professional in a business environment and how these key skills are used.

WEEK 2

SAP Professional Skills Part 1

Module 2 covers the first group of skills you’ll need to be successful as an SAP professional in a business environment. These key skills include how to conduct research and how to think! Thinking strategically helps you focus effectively on problems the customer hopes to solve. You will learn the difference between conceptual and strategic skills through design thinking and systems thinking. You’ll also learn how to apply an analytical tool kit to fully understand the customer’s organization, processes, and technology – and help the customer bring about the right changes to their business.

Communication with the customer is key. Communication and presentation skills will help you create concise, clear, and easy-to-comprehend written documents on SAP projects. At the end of the module, you will learn how Microsoft suite tools can be used to enhance your communication and professional writing skills.

WEEK 3

SAP Professional Skills Part 2

Module 3 is designed to give you specific skills related to SAP planning, project management, and collaboration. We start with personal planning and project planning. You will learn to first determine your goals, then your tasks, then prioritize them. You’ll also cover project management basics such as the implementation life cycle, work breakdown structure, baselines, and statement of work. We will also explore different methodologies like Waterfall, Agile, DevOps, and Cloud-based.

Managing relationships between team members is one of the most vital skills you can develop as a consultant. You will see how building relationships at work is directly related to reaching goals. You will also learn how developing business acumen, political sensitivity, and cultural awareness play a part in building teams and consulting. Finally, you will explore functional skills and domain skills and how they apply to working with customers.

WEEK 4

Introduction to the SAP Implementation Lifecycle

Module 4 is an introduction to the SAP implementation lifecycle. You will learn when customers engage with SAP and why. The phases in the implementation lifecycle will take you from engaging with the customer to deploying a solution in the customer’s environment.

You will see how to engage with the customer, discover their challenges and goals, prepare for and kick off the project, explore and analyze the customer’s business and technology landscape, design a solution, then deploy, test, and run the solution. We will introduce you to templates and tools to help accelerate your project work. Finally, you will learn more about how to apply your consulting skills at each stage of the lifecycle.

WEEK 5

Understanding SAP Professional Roles and Functional Knowledge

Module 5 focuses on the roles of the functional consultant and the technical consultant. What kind of work will you do if you become a functional consultant? You will focus on the customer’s industry and their processes and operations. You will discuss their pain points and design a solution using SAP software. What kind of work will you do if you become a technical consultant? You will translate the design into technical specifications and ensure that the solution runs effectively in the customer’s environment.

You may decide to focus on a particular functional area such as supply chain management. Or you may decide to focus on an aspect of technology such as writing code. We’ll help you understand what is possible as you start on the journey toward becoming an SAP professional. You will wrap up this module by examining key elements of the SAP product strategy and how it helps customers transform their core business processes.

WEEK 6

Hands-on Project: Professional Skills for Successful SAP Implementations

Module 6 is where you will apply what you have learned in this course. This will help you assess your understanding and perhaps get a feel for where you would like to direct your own career. You will choose a customer story about a real-life SAP implementation. Then you’ll prepare to join the project depicted in the customer story as an SAP professional on the initial team. You’ll research the customer’s organization, industry, and technology environment using the customer story materials and other creditable sources. You will present your findings to the customer either by writing a short summary or via a short video, explaining what you have discovered. Finally, you will review submissions from other learners, providing them feedback and receiving feedback on your work.