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Getting started as an SAP career CRM consultant

My company implemented SAP PM two years ago and by the completion of the project I was one of the super users training end users. We are now implementing CRM and ISU and I am a member of the project. I want to establish myself as a CRM consultant and my question is how to start. Are there companies that will provide me with more knowledge and help me get certified? I have tried to get certified on my own but it's very expensive.

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I think you may be focusing a bit too much on SAP certification. If you read through my previous SearchSAP questions, you'll see that I don't think too highly of SAP certification. I think it's a nice to have, but honestly, certification helps experienced SAP consultants more than those trying to break into consulting. The key is getting hands-on SAP experience, which you are obviously doing now.

Since SAP CRM is a growth area, you're actually in pretty good shape on your current CRM project. My advice would be to do your best to move as close to the actual configuration work as possible. True, it's not always easy to move from a user to a configuration expert, but you could start by trying to become more of a "super-user," a go-to person on your project between the SAP project team and your user community. Learn as much as you can about the business objectives of CRM (SearchCRM.com would be a good resource), and study everything you can find on SAP CRM online. The more you expand your own knowledge based, the more you'll be able to contribute on your project and the bigger responsibilities you will be given.

I'm not really sure that you need certification at this point. Sure, if you could afford it, having SAP CRM certification would help you that much more, but the main thing is to take advantage of you current situation to gain as many hands-on SAP skills as possible. Perhaps by staying late on the project and working hard, you can develop a mentor, a friendly SAP CRM consultant who can teach you some tricks of the trade. Anything to get your foot in the door on your current project should be explored.

This was first published in July 2006

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