Demand for external SAP consultants is continuing to grow, so it is time to take stock. Which positions are these SAP consultants hired for? What are the trends? And in what area is demand the highest: functional or technical positions? This blog post takes a look at the demand for SAP consultants.
“Number of positions – weighted”
In the period from March 2019 to March 2021, Ctac received nearly 1,500 consultant requests from customers in the Netherlands and Belgium. More than 16% of vacancies were in the financial sector, which was closely followed by Sales & Distribution (S&D) and Material Management (MM). Together these industries represented about 20% of the total number of position requests.
Switch to S/4HANA
Now that more and more companies are starting to prepare for the switch to S/4HANA, we can see a clear trend in these requests. Between March and December 2019, only 4% of requests required S/4HANA expertise. In the first half of 2020 this percentage rose to 8%,
and in Q3 and Q4 2020 it went up even more. By then, one in ten requests required knowledge of S/4HANA. We expect this demand to continue to increase exponentially in the coming years through to 2027, when support for SAP ECC – the predecessor to S/4 – is set to expire.
Growing shortage
Due to the deadline in 2027 and the fact that many companies have yet to make the switch to S/4HANA, demand will continue to rise exponentially. This means that the shortage of consultants will only increase, so you need to start your transition in good time. Don’t wait too long before setting up your first workshops and tracks. If you postpone your implementation and you start looking for consultants with several years of S/4HANA experience a few years from now, you will certainly not be the only one.
Technical or functional?
“Technical vs functional requests”
Another clear trend we see in the requests is that they no longer focus on technical IT issues alone and are revealing a particular demand for functional advice. Companies are increasingly looking for more help to improve their processes and want consultants with overarching expertise and knowledge of the industry they are working in. The major difference to IT consulting is that consultants are not afraid to challenge the business processes and proposed solutions, as they may have seen better solutions at other companies that could also be of interest to the customer in question. They share this expertise in order to take the customer and their SAP environment to the next level.
Ctac goes beyond the technical specifications and focuses on a healthy interaction between the technology and the business processes. We do this by staying in close contact with our customers and the hiring manager. Together we discuss our consultants’ profiles and we strive for the perfect technical and personal fit between our consultants and customers.
Are you looking for quality IT consultants? Do not hesitate to contact us directly to discuss your options at [email protected].
