Why, how and where to learn SAP without breaking the bank?

"The Why": why you should become an SAP expert?

If you are reading this newsletter, you are either familiar with the SAP world and/or ERPs so you can skip this intro "the why" and go straight to the next one: "the how", otherwise you can continue here.

When I was at the university, one of my school mates told me "Walid, we should learn the ERPs, especially the one called SAP, it's the best. It does everything a company needs and it's very demanded in the market".

Honestly I didn't really care at that moment but today I can't stop thinking about her words: SAP is the market leader in ERPs (Enterprise Resource Planning: a software that helps companies in selling, accounting, purchasing, decision making etc.)

There are more than 44.000 companies using it and an SAP consultant average salary is around 97k$ and can go up to 229k$ according to Glassdoor.

So YES it's definitely worth becoming an SAP expert but how can one do it? They don't usually teach us SAP at "normal" schools. And this was actually my problem when I graduated. I had zero knowledge in SAP but I wanted to work in the SAP world. Most of the companies rejected me because of no experience in ERPs and so do the other companies nowadays with most candidates.

"The How": how to become an SAP expert for free?

At my time (2007), there was very few old books about SAP, nothing was clear whether I needed to learn technical or functional or what did SAP look like etc. I still keep a great memory from my school mate Gerardo Grajeda in Mexico who was the first person ever to show me how did an SAP system look like, cheers my friend, thanks forever ??

Now in 2022, things are much different, you can find everything you need in the internet. You can learn skating in Youtube or cooking in TikTok! But her's a new problem: there are too many things that you can never know whether what you are learning is the right or the most up to date thing. It reminds me of my 1st internship when my former manager Roger E. told me this famous statement: As soon as we master technology, it becomes obsolete! Today it's the case more than ever: you learn crypto: NFT appears so you're late??

And so is the case for SAP products. Yes SAP has more than 300 solutions and platforms so which one to start with and where to find relevant and most up to date content??

In this newsletter I will give you all the possible tricks to learn the most recent and demanded SAP solutions in the market, without the need of using your credit card. I will point you out to official learning content by SAP and not by any 3rd party!

YES you are not dreaming, SAP trainings are expensive but for students and people seeking SAP jobs there are plenty of alternatives that don't require any investment. There you go:

"The Where": where to learn SAP official content for free?

Ok you gonna tell me that if I learn SAP over the internet it's not enough, I won't become an expert? Partially yes because nothing can replace professional experience in real life projects. However in the SAP courses I will guide you through, you will see experts explaining real life problems and providing solutions, you will have the opportunity to practice in real SAP systems, try, fail and learn and: FOR FREE ??

So here is the moment that you were waiting for since you subscribed to this newsletter: I will reveal the platforms to you. However since this first article of the newsletter is just an intro to set the stage, I won't deep dive into each platform. The details of each will be provided in the next weekly articles so ensure to stay subscribed and read all of them.

1?? Open SAP: online learning platform developed and maintained by SAP itself.

Courses are free, you can get your certificates for free if you take the exam before the deadline announced for each course.

Most of the courses are subtitled videos and offer exercises, case studies, testing systems and a forum to exchange between learners and experts.

2?? SAP Learning Hub: the official SAP learning platform for SAP customers and partners.

It has paid content but it also offers free simplified learning journeys to help you upskill and get prepared for official certifying SAP exams.

3?? Open HPI: A platform offering certifying courses for free around IT topics at the cutting edge of technology. There are no SAP topics but most of the them can help you in your SAP experience, especially if you target technical content.

Open HPI has been created by Hasso Platner, the SAP co-founder.

4?? Youtube: Yes, you heard it right, you can learn SAP on Youtube and there are several official Youtube channels maintained by SAP employees.

5?? Solution oriented websites: This is less common, but it exists. I know at least 2 SAP Solutions that you can learn on a dedicated official website developed and maintained by SAP.

Next steps?

On a weekly basis, I will dedicate an article to each of the platforms mentioned above in order to explain how it works, how to get certified for free etc. However if you are in a hurry, leave a comment below so I can send you the link to the platform you are interested into.

Don't forget to follow me on LinkedIn and ring the bell ?? to stay notified of all my posts. If you are not subscribed to this newsletter, I recommend you do now in order to learn the rest of becoming SAP expert for free secrets!

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