Where
to begin / What it involves:
SAP
stands for Systems, Applications and Products in Data Processing, and is a leading
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software package from a German company named
SAP AG.
SAP Certification: Does it Matter?
Before you (Mr. or Ms. SAP Professional) go rushing off to get certified by SAP, it's a good idea to consider the wide range of options available, and determine if certification is even useful
Employers and recruiters will also benefit from this article— you'll find some of your previous assumptions about the SAP certification process either challenged or reinforced.
We'll cover all these questions and more—but first, a little background on the SAP certification program.
Who can be certified and at what levels?
The certification program is available for SAP employees, partner employees, independent consultants, and client employees. Already SAP is ahead of Oracle—Oracle's certification programs for E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, and Siebel are only available to Oracle employees and partner employees.
About three years ago, after discussions with both clients and partners, SAP announced three levels of certification -- Associate, Professional, and Master. Currently the associate level and professional level exams are available. The master level is still in development.
The SAP website defines these levels as follows:
 |
|
|
Types Of Certification
Associate: “This certification covers the fundamental knowledge requirements for an SAP consultant, ensuring the successful acquisition of broad SAP solution knowledge and skills.”
Professional: “This advanced certification requires proven project experience, business process knowledge, and a more detailed understanding of SAP solutions.”
Master: “This certification, under development, involves demonstrating an expert-level understanding of a specific area of SAP software and the ability to drive innovation and solution optimization through in-depth knowledge and vision. Certification at this level requires broad project experience, comprehensive SAP product knowledge, and the ability to create a future IT vision within complex project environments.”
|
|
 |
The Associate level exams test book knowledge. In most cases, this level does not require SAP implementation experience in order to pass the exams. Questions on the Professional level exams are designed to test the SAP experience of the test taker. The requirements for the Master level involve more than taking exams. As the SAP website mentions, the process of obtaining Master level certification is still being defined.
SAP takes care to point out that you don't need to pass the Associate level exam before sitting for the Professional level exam. So you get to select which level you think you are qualified for and take that exam.
SAP Public Certification Information
We'll begin at www.SAP.com/usa/services/education/certification/index.epx
Here, you'll find definitions of each certification level, with links to certification training, exam locations and schedules, and policies and procedures.
Let's start with the “Find a certification” box in the top right corner of this page. I'm a former Sales Order and Pricing consultant, so let's see what I can find. Under “select solution” I selected “SAP ERP”. Under focus area, I selected “Applications”. Under role, I selected “Application Consultant”.
After I then clicked “Find”, I see a page with links to 32 different certifications, ranging across all the ERP applications, at both the Associate and Professional level. I selected this link: SAP Certified Application Associate - Sales Order Management with SAP ERP 6.0.
Lots of good information is presented, such as links to the exam description, related certifications such as the Professional certificate for Sales Order Management, etc.
Certification Training
Just like SAP software, the SAP website has several ways to accomplish the same thing.
Certification Guides & Sample Exam Questions
The following link goes to a list of links to sample questions: http://www.sap.com/services/education/certification/schedule/index.epx
I found ten multiple-choice questions on the Sales Order sample. They appeared to be good, solid questions--the kind of questions one would expect to see on a certification exam.
Some of the questions have multiple answers. SAP recently went to a “dichotomous scoring” technique, which means that partial credit is no longer given for partially correct answers. So if a question asks you to identify the two correct possible answers, and you get just one correct, you get no credit for that answer. Using this scoring method has resulted in SAP having to lower the passing score on exams—to sometimes as low as 55%.
Since 10 sample questions can't give you an idea of the full range of topics covered by a certification exam, you'll want to review the competency list provided for each exam.
A typical exam lasts up to three hours and contains 80 questions.
Exam Prep 
It's pretty obvious from my tour of the SAP certification pages that SAP hopes that a good number of people sign up for classes to prep for the exams.
While I don't believe that SAP regular classes for clients and consultants are oriented towards passing the certification exams (can you say “No consultant left behind'?), I have been told that some SAP instructors teach classes as rigorously as they can so that students can pass the exams.
SAP does not offer classes specifically tailored to exam content—in my view that's a good thing. I'd rather have a consultant pass an exam based on their hard earned knowledge and experience, than pass based on a review course.
Many test takers have passed the exams without taking any classes—they've either taken classes in the past or they rely on their years of field experience.
Other SAP Schools
It doesn't take long to google “SAP certification training”, and you'll find many companies that advertise SAP training for certification purposes. Here's one of my favorite descriptions:
“We as stand for SAP Best Practices. Trained more than 3000 students either online or onsite. All instructors are certified and we prepare you for certification. Our Motto is your carrier.”
Sounds contagious. I think I'll pass.
Much of the third-party SAP “certification training” action centers on Asia, especially India. Thousands of very smart people in these countries are taking courses at dozens, if not hundreds of training centers, and trying to break into the high-paying world of SAP implementations. Sadly, many are not having much luck finding such jobs in today's economy.
Exam Logistics
SAP certification exams are available in major cities across the US and Canada. Associate level exams in the US cost $500 USD. Professional level exams in the US cost $750 USD.
SAP also partners with Pearson VUE testing centers: www.pearsonvue.com/sap/ . There are more Pearson VUE locations than SAP testing locations. Pearson VUE charges the same prices for the exams as SAP does.
If you are wondering how many times you can attempt to pass a specific exam, the answer is:
“No candidate may participate in the same examination for the same release more than three times. A candidate who has failed an examination three times for a release may not attempt that examination again until the next release.”
A full set of exam policies and procedures are here: http://www.sap.com/usa/services/education/certification/policies.epx . There is also an FAQ link at the top of this page.
One of the rules is: “Successful candidates are not permitted to retake the same examination.”
Who wants to spend another $500 or $750 to repeat the same thing over and over? Are they hoping for a different result? Isn't that the definition of insanity? Seriously, this is probably a security thing—SAP wants to ensure that no one can remember all the questions, write them down after the exam, and distribute them to others.
Is Certification for New Releases Necessary?
By now, you might have noticed that in some areas there are different certification exams for different releases. From the SAP website: Certification is used as an essential benchmark for customers in times of increasingly dynamic market change.
Therefore, we need to ensure that certification credentials are always up-to-date. With the new program, SAP will be able to monitor the level of certifications within the certification community, and contact professionals with outdated certifications for a reminder that there is a need to re-certify. SAP retires exams as soon as they are two releases behind the current release of the software for which a certification exam is available.
I looked up all the Procurement exams available today:
- SAP Certified Solution Consultant SCM - Procurement with mySAP ERP 2005
- SAP Certified Application Professional - Procurement with SAP ERP 6.0
- SAP Certified Application Associate - Procurement with SAP ERP 6.0 EHP4
- SAP Certified Application Associate - Procurement with SAP ERP 6.0
- SAP Certified Application Professional - Procurement with SAP ERP 6.0 EHP4
Should you consider recertification in the same modules every time SAP issues a new release? I don't think so. The experts I consulted suggested that anyone with a pre-4.6 certificate should consider their certification dated. Assuming your oldest certification is at the 4.6 level, you should consider adding to your bag of skills and getting certified in new areas.
Is Certification Perceived to be Useful by the SAP Community?
I posted the following questions on LinkedIn about SAP certification a few months ago:
|
|
|
"Is SAP certification important? I'm going to blog about this topic and I appreciate your feedback. If you are a client, have you ever required certification when hiring consultants or employees? Have you found that certification is a predictor of success? Do you offer to pay for certification exams for your employees? If you are a consultant, are you certified? By whom? Have clients asked for evidence of certification before hiring you? Was the time and expense of certification worth it to you?"
Here's what I feel is a typical SAP client response. This is from Tinus Brink, an Audit Manager with SAB&T in South Africa:
“I have never appointed anyone in this firm or the previous company I worked for as General Manager based on Certification. The reason for this is simple. SAP Certification does not mean you can do the job, nor does it state that you have experience suited for big corporations and entitle you to work on their 4TB databases.”
|
|
|
Tinus goes on to clarify that years of experience sometimes doesn't mean much:
“Being a good SAP consultant should also not be narrowed down to how many years you have worked with SAP and then you are suddenly a K4 consultant based on years experience. All these methods are useless in the end. I evaluate a person based on ability and I can honestly say that I have worked with BASIS consultants with 2 years experience that I would trust more than some BASIS consultants with 10 years experience. Getting back to the issue of Certification—I believe it is good to show you have done the course and on some level present knowledge that you are not a complete idiot. I do not see this as the ultimate and neither should you.”
On the other hand, Jon Reed makes the case for certification being useful in some situations:
”So if training and certification rarely gives you a big edge in a hiring situation, when can it help? It can help when you are working to enhance your skills within the context of a long-term project. For example: consider the case of an MM/PP consultant or employee who has always wanted to break into APO but never had the chance. So, they go out and obtain an APO-related certification on their own time, on their own dime. As it turns out, this kind of pro-active investment makes a very positive impression on employers, and it also gives the consultant an expanded knowledge base in an area that "extends" from their core skills.
Conclusion:
With over 50,000 certification exams given annually, it's a sizeable revenue generator, but SAP doesn't provide a certification program just for the revenue from exams and classes. I think SAP cares about certification because they want to ensure project success and happy, referenceable clients.
Consultant quality is critical to making this happen. But the current certification program doesn't go far enough. SAP needs to extend the program to include practical experience and even evaluations of job performance. SAP needs to prove that individuals who pass the exams are, in fact, more successful than those without certification.
Until that happens, certification is a nice to have, not a must have.
Hope you found this article useful...
Eli Griffin
UltimateSAP.com
