Recruitment of SAP Professionals..

[Former Member]

Hi,

Now a days, recruitment in SAP almostly stopped. Major companies like IBM, ACCENTURE only were hiring people. so can any one tell me the reason behind this.

Thanks & Regards,

Ramana

[NathanGenez]

I had a similar communication with Jon Reed. You can read his blog here...

/people/jon.reed/blog/2008/03/24/how-is-the-sap-functional-skill-set-changing

-nathan

[markus_doehr2]

Here's a (German) article:

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Bedarf-an-SAP-Spezialisten-nimmt-deutlich-zu--/meldung/105994/from/rs...

(you can translate using http://translate.google.com or http://babelfish.altavista.com)

that is telling, that there's an increased demand for SAP specialists...

Markus

[Former Member]

All good points,

There is truth in both sides of the discussion. As an independent (UK Based) consultant who has worked for a few outsourcers I see a need to both large players (such as Accenture, IBM etc) and for nimble (easy to engage and dis-engage) independents. The problem both outsourcers and end customers have is getting high quality candidates. Unfortunately for the outsourcers is that if they cannot support their business with existing staff and cannot recruit they must take on sub-contractors (at % on top of their rates).

There needs to be a greater development of skills in the market. This needs to be structured (validated) and demonstratable.

I have co-founded a service for SAP professionals that has been launched in SAP (UK) this year. The service is called SID. This service provides hosted SAP ECC6.0 licensed environments, 1 per consultant, pre-loaded with SAP Best Practices (v2.600) and master data (see www.sidmembers.com). It is aimed at the BPX community and whilst allowing configuration it does not allow development. As it is stable it can be used for months or years without risk of being trashed by unfettered abap development.

There is a need for this type of product to support the professional - permanent or contract - to hold a portfolio of configuration based on SAP Best Practice. This can be used to demonstrate to end customers, potential employers or PMs resourcing specific projects. For contractors this also make formal training more beneficial - as they will have a system to practice on when they complete the course - making it easier and more cost effective to stay skilled.

There are many factors that will help to grow the labour market, one of them is to provide a sound basis for CPD. One that reading articles and books can only go so far in providing. I beleive the answer is hands on BPX practice in a safe environment. Hence the SID concept.

Any thoughts?

James

[Former Member]

Hi,

For your information, we try presently to hire qualified SAP professionals and can't find them...

Olivier

[Former Member]

These type of companies are like "Wasps around a Jam Jar".

Most of these "consultancy" companies are actually only glorified "Body Shops". SAP was never their primary market and still wouldn't be either. The only reason they survived in SAP was because of the typical short term "planning" endemic in these businesses - sweet talk the end client into this type of talk

.

Say an end client estimates it needs 200 extra people to to a job for 6 months etc.

" why pay a contractor / free lancer say 1000 EUR a day when we can manage your entire project with OUR OWN staff most of whom BTW are infinitely less qualified and experienced than a typical free-lancer "for a total fee much much less".

If the consultancy firm comes up with a figure significantly less than the 200 * 1000 EUR a day which it will probably do then this looks good to the end client.

Of course the poor guys who actually work for these "consultancies" might only be making around 25,000 - 40,000 EUR a year and often having to work horrendous hours under huge stress which will probably leave the majority as hospital cases by the time they are 50 (if they survive that long).

This worked fine when there were HUGE projects around needing 100's of people.

Now the market has matured --all the really big players have already implemented SAP so there is really only maintenance, hugely boring technical upgrades and Basis support. There's a lot less scope for the more interesting Project development stuff.

There are of course always new ongoing projects but these don't need vast armies of people today -- often a small team of around 10 will now suffice even for a quite challenging project.

So after the Y2K (and what a waste of time that was) -- Free-lancers always said this from day one but the "consultancies" recruited zillions of people into one of the most pointless and expensive ideas I.T has EVER embraced and once this exercise was over what could they do with the 1000's of people they had already recruited --no way would they have them "sitting on the bench" being non-billable.

Huge cut backs of course. Now the market is a bit better but people like Accenture etc never ever learn.

Usually also because the knowledge the people who work for these type of organisations is somewhat limited these consultancies invariably have to still hire a few professional free lancers to help get their own staff out of a jam. However most free lancers I know absolutely HATE working through these companies - it's like selling your soul to the Devil -- Free lancers always prefer working with the end client.

I tend to regard these sort of organisations rather like a cockroach infestation - once say an organisation like Accenture gains entry on to your project it's almost impossible ever to get them out again.

True SAP professionals wouldn't even THINKof working for these type of organisations --certainly not for the long term.

There's plenty of life in SAP yet -- just avoid these type of companies like the plague if you want to live past 50 and eventually have a decent retirement.

Finally if you want to get into SAP as a full time pro ("permie") there are literally 100,000's of end user companies still recruiting

just look at typical web sites like http://www.jobserve.co.uk and choose the Permanent option.

Cheers

jimbo

[former_member374]

Hi James,

The large consultancies seem to be a pet peeve of yours. The flip side of working with tons of single freelancers is that you have to manage all of them individually create vendor accounts send them 1099s (in the US), make sure they all have insurance, ... To manage freelancers can be like herding cats.

You may end up spending more time on that overhead then insuring that your project is on track.

By using a larger consultancy you have one throat to choke if things are going off track. One of the problems is, that the line of business people at the customer companies are not trained and often don't have the time to manage the consultants aka sub-projects correctly.

Setting expectations, checking on skills, progress early and often and taking corrective action immediately when out of line. To be able to do that you need experienced people that know the capabilities of the SAP software too. It is a matter of adequately staffing and training the project team on the customer side to ensure success.

All the best, Mark.

[andreas_mann3]

I know a company with a big SAP-project, which nearly wrecked. The main reason was missing skill and a permanent fluctuating staff ... The company hired more than 70 consultants from a big player.

better look <a href="http://www.freelancermap.de/">here</a>

Andreas

[former_member110461]

 " why pay a contractor / free lancer say 1000 EUR a day when we can manage your entire project with OUR OWN staff most of whom BTW are infinitely less qualified and experienced than a typical free-lancer "for a total fee much much less" 

James - I think you are very much generalising if what sometimes happens - I happen to work for a big consultancy and I generally have more experience and more knowledge than a lot of contractors. I agree that there a lot of very good contractors out there - but unfortunately there a lot of not very good contractors - often who have out of date skills. I have worked on several projects where the client has decided to bring in contractors to do a certain part of the project (I have absolutely no problem with this) but most of the time they end up asking me how to resolve issues and don't deliver the job properly. And don't get me started on those who will only work the hours they are paid for (quite a lot I have noticed). When you have someone who will only work 7 hours, vs a consultant who costs a bit more and works 10 hours, they work out about the same.

When employing any consultancy the client must be careful to make sure that they have their own staff on the project to control how much the consultancy does and to ensure that their staff learn from the consultants. Unfortunately many clients are not as smart as this.

There is of course the other mistake a lot of clients make, with both consultancies and contractors, which is rather than bringing them in to get a job done, they then let them stay on and on and on when it would of been much cheaper employing someone directly.

Just my opinion

As for recruitment - I still get phone calls every week with people trying to recruit me.

Paul

[darren_hague]

Paul,

I agree with most of what you are saying, but I must respectfully disagree on the issue of working hours. Basically, creative thought-based work of the type that we do on SAP projects cannot be sustained effectively when working long hours. If someone is working 10-hour days regularly (50 hour weeks), then they are probably performing less well overall (not just per-hour) than if they were working a standard 37-40 hour week. Of course, there are always deadlines, go-lives, etc. where you need people to put in that bit of extra effort to achieve project goals on time, but asking for this regularly is bad for both the project and the people.

Tom DeMarco and Tim Lister wrote a great book, "Peopleware: Productive Projects & Teams", which justifies this approach for more effectively than I can here, and similar reasoning is also behind the Extreme Programming (XP) principle of a maximum 40-hour working week.

By keeping the working week reasonable, we can deliver better projects, and enable people to have better, longer careers in consultancy - addressing many of the points raised in previous posts on this thread.

Best regards,

Darren

[former_member110461]

I agree and I only do the hours if required.... but I have had quite a few places where I have had people refusing to carry on troubleshooting an issue because they aren't being paid for the extra hours - even though they're being paid £600+ a day. Now there are many I have worked with who do not have this attitude, but it is something which seems to be much more prevelant in freelancers than consultancy staff.

Paul

[darren_hague]

I guess that the main problem here is that contractors are often hired based on an hourly rate, but a client will only let them bill so many hours in a day. If the rate was genuinely negotiated as a "day rate" then the problem should not occur. I have had similar issues when working with someone from a software vendor who counted their working hours as starting from when they left home and finishing when they returned. From a working time regulations perspective, they were absolutely correct (they were travelling to a customer site, not to their office base) - but on behalf of the client paying the money, it felt like we were getting substantially less than a day's worth of work for the "day rate" we were paying.

Of course, it's not always the fault of the individual - often there's a middleman in there somwhere who is presenting different stories to each party they are representing, and that leads to the differing expectations once a contractor is onsite.

Cheers,

Darren

[pokrakam]

Interesting discussion, but I think we're forgetting that many points apply equally to contractors and consultancy staff. There are two types: clueless or clued up, for some odd reason there are far fewer in the middle than one would expect.

Amongst freelancers you get folks who just want a permanent job at contractor rates and then you get others who strive to be professional and avail themselves of the latest trends and knowledge. Usually the rate reflects this, but there are also cowboys out there that give us freelancers a bad name.

As to hours... Whilst I'm always prepared to do what it takes to resolve a crisis, regular working is a little different. I have to admit to occasionally adjusting my willingness to work late to client rates and attitude.

An example was a global consultancy where I accepted my lowest rate in several years - they refused to budge on a junior rate but it was a 2 month job in a nice location with some sightseeing and vacation potential.

My contract specified 'working day', and when I got there I got told that a working day on that project was 9 hours (in Germany!). That peeved me off somewhat - the tightest client was also the most demanding. 9 hours they got, not a minute more. It was also a horrific project atmosphere, their own consultants had to travel from afar, get in at 11am on Monday and make up the 9 hour average by working 8am to 8pm the rest of the week, just to be able to get home before midnight on Friday.

I must admit it was a rather liberating experience to just "down tools and go" when the minute hand hit the appropriate spot. Fortunately not something I've made a habit of

Cheers,

Mike

[Former Member]

I can't see anything wrong in working for the hours you are paid for.

The "Day Rates" prevalent usually in the USA are a nightmare. How long is a day.

Your nice 700 EUR a day rate doesn't look too good when you have to work 14 hours to get it either.

Fortunately most contracts written in the EU ( apart from UK contractors working in the EU) are based on a notional 8 hour day even if the rate is in X EUR / Day and overtime compensation either by Money or Time off will be paid.

The UK as always gets the worst of all options here as their contracts unless specifically written otherwise will insist that a day will be as long as the client wants it to be.

However there is usually NO flexibilty shown by consultancies --they expect you to finish something if it needs to get fixed --even if it does spill over your "notional 8 hr" day.

I don't have too much problem with this -- even if I can't claim the pay for extra hours worked I would expect other compensation such as "time off in lieu" so I could vanish at say 11.00a.m on a Friday.

Why SHOULD we as professionals be expected to provide a service to people FREE OF CHARGE. Nobody else does. You don't go to your accountant, lawyer, plumber etc and expect them to work for nothing do you ?.

Most of the partners of the so called consultancies --accenture, IBM, etc etc have a very nice income etc --all paid for by the likes of their employees and consultants.

I'll work every hour I'm paid for but I'm NOT WORKING FOR FREE.

If I have to do extra hours l'll expect some compensation whether in cash, time off or other benefits such as share options etc, company products etc.

If the client refuses to pay the extra money or grant compensation time off then the consultant has every right to "down tools" after working his / her contracted hours.

Remember that most consultants are hired on to a project and told "This has to be done by say Friday". The consultant normally hasn't been part of the initial business investigation and normally doesn't have any input as to whether the deadlines are technically feasable or not.

In general most management doesn't have a CLUE about the technical realisation of realistic deadlines but having promised to deliver something to their bosses then they are expected to produce the goods - and woe betide the poor consultant sitting in the mess of this dogs dinner.

Cheers

Jimbo

[Former Member]

Interesting thread, but there seem to be a couple of different topics appearing...

Firstly, what is the difference between a contractor and a consultant? Is it just that one charges hourly, and one charges daily? Or is it the name of the company they work for? Or the way they dress? Or what? I can understand Mark's distinction of "single freelancers" wherein each person is contracted through a separate company, but after that the distinction blurs for me. If Worker X is at the client through Accenture {to use the example above}, and Worker Y is at the client through ABC Bodyshops, and both are doing the same work, can one really be deemed a consultant and the other a contractor - if so, why? And does the title change if behind the scenes Worker X is actually contracted to Accenture through ABC Bodyshops, and is not an Accenture employee...?

Secondly there is hourly vs daily rates. My preference is hourly, every time. Fairer for the client, fairer for the worker. Our company does lots of local adhoc support work (as well as bigger projects, including long-term support, upgrades, ABAP add-ons etc etc). As an example, just before Christmas I visited 4 client sites in one day (including one repeat visit)... So should I have (a) billed 4 days, or (b) just the hours it took to do the work, or (c) done some pro rata of a daily rate for the short visits (which ends up being just like hourly only messier with rounding)..? {Answer = (b)}. And what of the project, several years ago now, where I worked 300+ hours in a month to meet the deadline - daily rates would have been a bit harsh when everyone was working above-and-beyond the call of duty to deliver, methinks.

Nuff said, I best get back to the lovely Autumn day outside...

Jonathan

[Former Member]

Hi Jonathon

The question of whether someone is a consultant or a contractor also must have some kind of grounding in the way the individual views themselves. For example I have been known to call myself a contractor to annoy "consultants" working in the next cubical when I was in Melbourne, but been a consultant to annoy the "contractors" when back in Canberra. At the end of the day I was still me, hired to architect and construct a technical solution and cut the associated code. The job description is secondary.

We also have the problem that, in our Government market, the term consultant has been somewhat tarnished due to the influences of the (old) big five (or four or six depending on the length of your memory) taking good money to deliver not much. The joke about using someone's watch to tell them the time comes to mind. But it is this tarnished model which has given us both a hand as people who get the job done without respect of a job title, and who establish a charging model to suit both the worker and the customer - despite my reputation of being a mercenary grouch.

And in overall terms, although the bigger players may (or may not) have changed their approach to hiring, the customers I work with still seem to need more skilled people, but may be less inclined to go for the bigger players in preference to those who they know can get the job done. One of our mutual friends actually gave me my most accurate job title of Redneck ABAPper - does this mean I can charge in moonshine.

Cheers

Gareth

[pokrakam]

Agree with Gareth, the difference is in the context. I'm a consultant when I talk to my bank manager, a contractor when I'm socializing with the locals - it just feels wrong to call yourself a consultant when having a beer down the pub

Traditionally the differentiation should be based on skill, scope, responsibility and level of service provided. It's a bit like the difference is between a developer and a programmer. A developer knows how to program, but a programmer is not necessarily a software developer.

Similarly a "freelance consultant" should be expected to assume a higher level of responsibility than a "contract programmer" who writes code to spec. Sadly in these days of "helpdesk consultants" and whatnot the terms have become rather blurred.

As for the big consultancies... well, in my book they are exactly the same. The only difference is that the term contractor doesn't apply, so they are consultants, programmers, techies, basis guys, portal folk, or whatever -depending on what they do and who I'm talking to.

Cheers,

Mike

[Former Member]

Dilbert seems to be more accurate

>"My recommendations are based on an analysis of accountablity. As a consultant, I'm not accountable to your stockholders. So I can recommend anything that amuses me."

>"I like to con people. And I like to insult people. If you combine con & insult, you get consult!"

>"If you give a man a fish he will eat for a day. But if you teach a man to fish he will buy an ugly hat. And if you talk about fish to a starving man then you are a consultant."

- Dilbert

Edited by: Ravi Dixit on Apr 4, 2008 1:17 PM

[pokrakam]

Actually the last one is frighteningly close to the truth

[Former Member]

you're probably implicitely assuming a certain region for which your statement holds true.

I think your observation is not valid globally. Not at all. Maybe some globalized caravan, which stopped for some time at your place, just moved on.

anton