By Freya Purnell
A group of SAP professionals, frustrated with the current models for recruiting and resourcing trained SAP staff, have banded together to form the Australian Society of SAP Professionals (ASSP).
Keith Wallis, head of solutions, strategy and development, TAMS and one of the founders of the ASSP, said many of those working in the sector are disappointed with the calibre of consultants being placed on SAP projects, and feel that there needs to be more regulation of the market, as the skills shortage has led to recruitment and rates getting out of control.
“I think people are just putting anybody and everybody out onto jobs. The other thing is that the recruiters are acting like consulting companies, charging 30 per cent for permanent staff and 20 per cent on a contract,” Wallis said. “We are sick of people going from consultant to solution architect on a project when they’ve actually had no experience. There needs to be some career transition processes that enable this elevation to occur. “
Wallis said many consultants believe there is a need for more professional development for SAP professionals, as well as a place clients can go for independent, unbiased advice about their SAP systems.
“For the end client, when they go into these projects, in some cases there’s no knowledge of SAP whatsoever and there’s a total trust of the implementation partner. The implementation partner is simply putting resources on the projects that probably have never done this type of project before,” Wallis said.
Wallis said the ASSP will form an independent board of members representing the interests of consultants.
Among the group’s plans are instituting professional development requirements, creating defined career paths, providing independent quality assurance reviews, and assembling a database of skilled SAP professionals in the Australian market, which would detail their skill level and experience.
“It could change the way SAP consulting works. You could end up with a consulting company which simply supplies four or five lead people to a project, and the rest of the people could be sourced through the ASSP, instead of having 20 recruiters running around the market arguing over who owns what resource, which is what happens today,” Wallis said.
Wallis said the society’s membership model will be similar to that offered by the Australian Society of Accountants, whereby members pay an annual fee, with clients also potentially charged a finder’s fee when accessing resources from the society’s database. A portion of these funds would then be earmarked for training for those placed in contracts by the society. This regulation would be controlled by an independent board with nominees to be called for shortly.
The group also plans to run conferences, with the first event, ‘PPM Revolution: From Strategy to Execution’, focusing on project portfolio management, slated for May this year. Other conferences will be focused on asset management, engineering construction and retail.
“These conferences are aimed at the first two hours being for the decision-makers and then the rest of the day is aimed at the users, with the view of giving the market information about what is available in the SAP landscape, what consultants have done, and really improving the level of communication,” Wallis said.
At the time of writing, the ASSP had over 500 members of its LinkedIn group, but it has a target of at least 2000, to gain strength in numbers in the market.
“As consultants we know there’s a gap in certain SAP functionality. If you’ve got 50 consultants representing clients who recognise and collaborate regarding this gap, it becomes a pretty powerful forum to go back to SAP and ask for improvements to the product,” Wallis said.
He said the group was not in competition with the SAP Australian User Group, as its members will be consultants, rather than users.
