SAP Certification: Overview and Career Opportunities
SAP is a global company specializing in enterprise software, including Customer Relationship Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, Supplier Relationship Management, and much more. SAP started in 1972 in Walldorf, Germany, led by five former IBM engineers who wanted to offer standardized software for integrating business processes. Today, SAP has over 345,000 customers and more than 84,000 employees.
SAP reports that 87 percent of Ford Global 2000 companies and 98 percent of the 100 most valuable brands use SAP solutions. Additionally, 100 percent of the top-scoring companies reported by Dow Jones also leverage SAP, and 4 out of 10 major German enterprises rely on the ERP system from Walldorf.
To meet the demand for skilled professionals, SAP offers an extensive certification program to ensure excellent product and customer support and to close the IT skills gap. The SAP certification program currently includes over 350,000 certified SAP experts worldwide.
Overview of the SAP Certification Program
SAP offers over 150 certifications, each focused on a specific SAP product. You can browse SAP certifications on the company's website by product, solution category, or delivery method and location. Certifications are typically found at the 'Associate', 'Specialist', or 'Professional' level, which can be understood as follows:
Associate Certifications: These are for individuals who are new to SAP solutions and have familiarized themselves with SAP technologies through manuals or training.
Specialist Certifications: These build upon Associate-level credentials and recognize professionals with skills in specific components or roles.
Professional Certifications: These recognize individuals with deep knowledge of SAP solutions and practical experience.
No prior knowledge, training, or other certifications are required for Associate and Professional level certifications. To obtain a Specialist certification, candidates must hold an Associate-level credential.
What's more, SAP certifications don't require re-certification. However, to ensure your qualifications stay current, SAP monitors your credentials and notifies you if any of them become outdated. The company develops delta exams whenever an SAP solution with significant changes is released. Certification holders then need to pass one or more delta exams within six months to keep their skills, knowledge, and certifications up-to-date.
SAP Certification Exams
Associate and Professional-level certifications only require a single exam. For the Specialist certification, candidates need to pass both the Specialist and Associate exams. You can grab an exam voucher from the SAP website and then take the exam at an SAP Training Center.
Some certifications are available through SAP Certification in the Cloud. With the SAP Certification Hub, you can take up to six exams within a 12-month period for an annual subscription of 500€. (The fee for Certification in the Cloud is roughly equivalent to the cost of one exam taken at a physical test center. So, it's definitely worth taking the time to check which certifications are available via the cloud program.)
SAP Solution Categories
If you're familiar with SAP certifications, you might recall that they used to be categorized by job roles like System Administrator, System Architect, and Developer. While job roles still play a part in the certification program, SAP now categorizes its certifications by solution categories. This makes it easier for SAP professionals to find training and certifications relevant to their areas of interest and expertise within an organization. Here are some of the different solution categories:
· SAP Ariba Procure-to-Pay (P2P)
· SAP Business One
· SAP BusinessObjects
· SAP Customer Relationship Management
· SAP Enterprise Resource Planning
· SAP HANA
· SAP NetWeaver
· SAP Solution Manager
· SAP Supplier Relationship Management
· SAP Supply Chain Management
· SAP Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (SAP Sybase ASE)
· Enterprise Mobility Solutions
· Industry Solutions
Within these categories, most certifications fall into the Associate level, but you'll also find plenty of Professional and Specialist certifications across the entire SAP certification portfolio. SAP lists all current certification exams here. Since we can't cover every category and certification in this article, let's dive into some of the most popular SAP certification solution categories to give you an idea of what SAP offers.
SAP NetWeaver
SAP NetWeaver is a popular platform; here you'll find SAP NetWeaver certifications focusing on managing SAP applications like ERP, CRM, Java, and ABAP, as well as Business Warehouse, Portal, integration technologies, and development. The available certifications vary by category, but here are a few examples of these current certifications:
Administration: Technology Associate - SAP NetWeaver 7.4, Technology Consultant OS/DB Migration for SAP NetWeaver 7.4
Business Warehouse: Application Associate - Business Intelligence with SAP NetWeaver 7.0
Portal: Technology Associate - SAP Enterprise Portal 7.4.0
Process Integration Technologies: Development Staff/Technology Staff - Process Integration with SAP NetWeaver 7.31
ABAP Programming: Development Staff - ABAP with SAP NetWeaver 7.40 or 7.50
SAP also offers a ton of NetWeaver training courses, including some specifically for project teams.
SAP Solution Manager
When you think about technical support, you're probably thinking about the SAP Solution Manager. It lets pros manage entire SAP-based solution environments, covering everything from selection and implementation to daily operations and ensuring system reliability.
SAP provides a bunch of training options and certifications to get professionals ready to work with SAP Solution Manager. The training is split into several subcategories, including general solution overviews, project management, end-to-end solutions, configuration, and application.
SAP offers various certifications for those responsible for implementing and maintaining systems with Solution Manager, including several Certified Technology Associates focusing on Change Control Management, Business Process Monitoring, and Business Process Interface Monitoring. Each certificate comes with its own recommended training roadmap.
One of the cool SAP Solution Manager certificates is the SAP Certified Associate Project Manager. This cert goes beyond traditional project management skills, specifically validating the abilities needed to manage SAP projects. Exam topics include data management, key workflow deliverables, business process management, technical solution management (including the ASAP methodology), implementing SAP projects, enabling tools, key concepts for ASAP, training within the SAP methodology, change management, SAP NetWeaver capabilities, test and cutover management, and "Running SAP like a factory" with enabling tools.
SAP Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (SAP Sybase ASE)
SAP maintains a full training and certification portfolio for anyone interested in DB administration, integration, security, development, or performance. Besides SAP ASE, this includes SAP IQ, SAP Replication Server, SAP Power Builder, and SAP Power Designer.
The SAP ASE portfolio has two subcategories: ASE Administration and ASE Development. Each offers a single Technology Associate certificate.
In the ASE Administration track, you'll find the Technology Associate - Database Administrator for SAP Sybase ASE 15.7. Exam topics include:
Database backup,
Server configuration,
Tuning with Logical Process Management,
Transactions with Transact-SQL functions,
Architecture and installation,
Maintenance,
Security,
Table management,
Database administration, and
Data analysis
The training focuses on SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise and includes a fast-track course for new professionals. Other courses cover System and Database Administration, Performance and Tuning: Configuring Adaptive Server Enterprise, and Powering Up with Sybase Adaptive Server.
In the ASE Development area, SAP offers the SAP Certified Technology Associate - Development Consultant for SAP Sybase ASE 15.7. This exam confirms a candidate's knowledge in data analysis, query optimization and statistics, query access methods, join processing, table and index structure, transaction concepts, stored procedures and optimization, plus ASE performance tuning and fundamentals. Recommended training includes Fast Track to SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise, as well as Performance and Tuning: Adaptive Server Enterprise 16.0 Query Optimization.
Related Professions, Training, and Resources
SAP certifications pretty much cover every business process in all key industries. Just do a quick search on online job boards, and you'll see the huge variety of job opportunities for SAP-certified folks. For example, a sugar manufacturer in Minnesota is on the hunt for an SAP Developer to design, build, monitor, test, and optimize SAP ERP applications. A top technical service provider needs an SAP Administrator to 'own' all aspects of their client's SAP application infrastructure, with a focus on managing SAP Incident, Problem, Risk, and Change Management. Plus, a global SAP Business One Value-Added Reseller is looking for a technical SAP Sales Representative to provide consulting and support for SAP ERP solutions to their clients.
Whether you’re a business analyst, business process manager, developer, IT administrator, team leader, trainer, power user, or executive who works with SAP products, you’ll find a wide range of career opportunities. SAP offers in-person training at its SAP Training Centers worldwide. There are also live virtual training sessions taught by SAP experts that include Access live SAP systems for an immersive learning experience. You can also take interactive e-learning courses that complement in-person training by enrolling in a single course or subscribing to multiple courses.
The SAP E-Academyoffers training courses designed to help you become familiar with specific SAP solution areas and prepare you for certification exams. You’ll receive one to five months Access self-paced courses. SAP e-Learningprovides access to individual courses for anyone interested in a single training course. Candidates who want to deepen their knowledge can sign up for Live Access, which allows them to practice their existing skills in a supported SAP environment. If none of these learning options are right for you, check out the SAP Learning Hub. There, you’ll find 24/7 Access all the training you need.
Lastly, for most CERT exams, SAP actually provides sample questions – these used to be real questions from past live exams. You can easily check them out by clicking the PDF link for sample questions on any exam's webpage.
Check out training.sap.com to dive deeper into all the SAP training opportunities.
