There seems to be no let-up in demand for SAP professionals. But could the industry be headed for another resourcing crisis? Freya Purnell reports.
Fruit prices might have gone up 2 or 3 per cent in 2011, but in the last six months, the price of bananas have increased by 400 per cent. That’s a bit like SAP salaries.
Peoplebank CEO Peter Acheson says SAP professionals are in very strong demand, being driven by an increasingly broad roll-out of SAP solutions across major sectors. “Salaries and contracting rates year-on-year are up over 10 per cent roughly. That is nearly two and a half times the overall IT salary increase,” Acheson says.
Everjoy managing director Adrian Everett has also observed very strong market conditions across the board over the last 12-18 months, with a robust increase in demand across industries and locations. “The difficulty really is the age-old problem of quality candidate supply,” he says. He believes that despite global economic uncertainty, confidence has improved in the Australian market.
“They are not taking disruptions to heart as quickly as they have in the past, and they are also remembering the reasons for taking on SAP projects in the first place,” Everett says. “So whether it’s process efficiency or increasing mobility solutions to drive sales through a mid-level workforce, overall people are seeing the benefit of continuing their SAP projects regardless of market or international impact.”
Sector by sector
In line with the themes of Australia’s two-speed economy, the strongest sectors for SAP salaries are resources and the public sector, with utilities and financial services also supporting demand.
“The resources sector has stepped back into the market and is very, very active in terms of hiring IT people in general but also SAP people,” Acheson says.
“We are seeing a large market growth for the bigger-end projects from the likes of Defence, BHP, and Rio, which are taking massive numbers of resources on high rates and for very long periods of time, which is creating a gap in the rest of the market,” Everett says.
In financial services, the Commonwealth Bank core banking modernisation project over the last few years has sucked some SAP skills out of the market as well. In addition to these large projects, many organisations are implementing smaller projects such as mobility, business intelligence (BI) and SAP BusinessObjects Planning and Consolidation (BPC) solutions, according to Everett.
Acheseon agrees. “In a lot of instances, companies may have installed SAP five years ago but they are adding functionality to the core platform. Essentially, it’s a combination of new implementations and progressive upgrading of the platforms.”
In terms of functional areas, GRC and security, BI and BPC are all hotspots.
“We are also getting massive demand for traditional HR/Payroll skills across a range of industries, for CRM and mobility solutions, especially Portal solutions, and backend FI/CO. Everyone is engaged and there is plenty of opportunity,” Everett says.
With a swag of new technology developments, SAP professionals will do well to take note of what the next big thing will be. “The buzz is all about HANA. We will see how SAP goes to market with that in the next 12 months, but I think this push by SAP has really enhanced that BI demand and the presence of BI solutions in the forefront of the CIO’s mind. Then mobility, particularly with the acquisition of Sybase, will be the future of SAP for the next few years,” Everett says.
A bare market
With a shortage of good SAP people, the classic laws of supply and demand are now operating in the Australian market to push up salaries for both permanent staff and contractors. Organisations are looking to mitigate risks with permanent salaries containing an at-risk component, according to Everett, but contractor rates are “a little bit out of control”. “They are increasing potentially to levels which aren’t necessarily sustainable,” Everett says, adding that they are pushing even higher than before the GFC.
“In particular locations people are taking advantage of shortages – in Canberra and Perth certainly people are almost exorbitantly increasing their rates. I think on the whole there is a lot more activity from the consultants in terms of realising the demand that was out there. We are seeing an increasing willingness to move and change roles,” Everett says. “So we have seen instances where people are leaving projects earlier or not seeing their contracts through, which is obviously disruptive to the current employer. There is a trend of people moving simply for a few extra dollars, which is not ideal.”
Everett says Australia and New Zealand companies are still looking overseas rather than taking on junior staff, particularly given the relative attractiveness of the Australian economic climate. There is currently a focus on US citizens and even expats returning to Australia.
“Obviously it’s an uncertain market over there at the moment, and with the dollar at or above parity, so it is quite appealing for them to come to Australia,” Everett says.
Making the most of the current conditions
So if you have those coveted SAP skills, what can you do to capitalise on these conditions? Before you start rubbing your hands together, make sure your skills are bang up to date.
“One of the things we always recommend is that people continue to invest in their development and be exposed to the new modules of SAP so that they remain current and therefore strongly marketable,” Acheson says.
“That progressive ongoing training is really important, and it is something that often gets forgotten when we’re in strong markets. Invariably what can happen is if the technology and software has moved on and you haven’t kept current, you could end up in an environment where it can be difficult to find work and you can’t command the value that perhaps you could in the past.”
Acheson also recommends keeping an ear to the ground on which customers have major SAP implementations underway, and which modules of SAP they’re implementing. “If you’re been working for three or four years on a particular module or version, you can expose yourself to one of the newer modules and then target employers you know are doing projects in that area.”
This article was first published in Inside SAP Yearbook 2012 (September 2011).
