Sap And Enterprise Trends Podcasts From Jon Reed (@jonerp) Of Diginomica.com

Welcome to the fifth edition of The ERP Lounge: Misadventures and Opportunities in SAP Consulting, the new podcast series from JonERP.com! The ERP Lounge is the new "long form" podcast series that features uncensored, in-depth discussions on the hard truths and real opportunities in the SAP skills marketplace. All ERP Lounge podcasts kick off with reader questions from listeners like yourself!

What business trend will SAP have to tackle in 2010 to stay relevant? And what is the future of ERP training amidst all the virtual training hype? How does SAP certification impact the SAP hiring process and, and how are new "social networking" sites like LinkedIn making their presence felt when consultants are evaluated? Oh, and how does Jon Reed make money anyway? What exactly is the JonERP.com business model?

What is the future of SAP consulting? Why do SAP customers struggle with SAP after go live? Where are the gaps in service that traditional Systems Integrators can't fill? To get to the bottom of these questions, I asked Greg Tomb, founder and CEO of Vivido Labs and former CEO of SAP North America, to join our podcast series and give us his take on how SAP consulting is changing.

Welcome to the fourth edition of The ERP Lounge: Misadventures and Opportunities in SAP Consulting, the new podcast series from JonERP.com! The ERP Lounge is the new "long form" podcast series that features uncensored, in-depth discussions on the hard truths and real opportunities in the SAP skills marketplace. All ERP Lounge podcasts kick off with reader questions from listeners like yourself!

At SAP TechEd, I was involved with numerous video shoots and podcast tapings. But my favorite from the conference stands out clearly: this live SAP tech skills chat with the Enterprise Geeks. What stood out about this taping? It was live, without a net, talking without any script or planning on the future of SAP technical careers - with a live audience asking us questions and watching to see if our material and views were credible.

Too often, realizing SAP career dreams is seen as a process of seniority: until you have paid your dues for many years, you won't see the payback. While hard work is never a bad thing, Brian Dennett of Colgate-Palmolive has a different story: just two years into his SAP career, he was a Demo Jam finalist at SAP TechEd Phoenix 2009 (link to full SAP DemoJam replay). This was a powerful reminder that SAP career success in today's market has as much to do with late night bursts of content creation as it does with cubicle-based dues paying. To find out more about Brian's great story and get a view into his own career path, I had the opportunity to tape a live podcast with him at SAP TechEd 2009.

Many still think of SAP BPM as futuristic stuff - images of "business users putting on propeller hats" might be one way to dismiss these trends. That's why I was excited to do a podcast with SAP's Greg Chase, who had approached me prior to SAP TechEd Phoenix to tell me about the customers SAP was hearing from who were looking for a type of SAP BPM skill set that was not readily available.

One of the most controversial issues in the SAP community today is the question of SAP Enterprise Support and whether the support justifies the cost. In the flurry of blog posts on this topic, an important viewpoint can get overlooked: the day-to-day experience of SAP customers. Recently, Panaya, an SAP third party solutions provider, released their 2009 SAP Support Costs Survey. This survey put some meat on the bone of the hot topics in SAP support, such as the cost of support per user, the attitudes towards Enterprise Support, and the key support challenges that SAP users face.

SAP is at a serious crossroads. The ERP market is in a state of significant disruption. The down economy has not only slowed sales; it's created a fertile ground for Software as a Service business models. As I say in the podcast, how SAP responds to these market challenges is going to have a lot to say about its future. Those of us who work in the SAP community have a lot at stake as well. On the consulting side, the commoditization of basic ERP skills is challenging consultants to find a "higher skills ground."

Welcome to the third edition of The ERP Lounge: Misadventures and Opportunities in SAP Consulting, the new podcast series from JonERP.com! The ERP Lounge is the new "long form" podcast series that features uncensored, in-depth discussions on the hard truths and real opportunities in the SAP skills marketplace. All ERP Lounge podcasts kick off with reader questions from listeners like yourself!

A handful of people in the SAP industry are distinguished by their truly outstanding contributions to the SAP community. Kevin Wilson, co-founder of ERPGenie.com and partner with Qdata USA, Inc, is one of those people. ERPGenie.com has supported the skills growth of thousands of SAP professionals. So what is the philosophy behind ERPGenie's success? And how has Kevin Wilson used those same principles to build his own SAP consulting career? What are his keys to finding a marketable niche in the SAP market and becoming a thought leader?

Welcome to the second edition of The ERP Lounge: Misadventures and Opportunities in SAP Consulting, the new podcast series from JonERP.com! The ERP Lounge is the new "long form" podcast series that features uncensored, in-depth discussions on the hard truths and real opportunities in the SAP skills marketplace. From this point forward, all ERP Lounge podcasts kick off with reader questions from listeners like yourself!

What are the keys to becoming a successful SAP developer? Why is SAP MII becoming such an important piece of functionality? And what do technical SAP folks need to learn from functional specialists and vice versa? In this podcast, Jon Reed of JonERP.com gets the answers to these questions with SAP Mentor Abesh Bhattacharjee of SAP Labs. In the debut of a podcast Jon and Abesh have been plotting since last December, Abesh shares the good news of the release of his new book on Implementing and Configuring SAP MII from SAP Press (co-authored by fellow SAP Mentor Dipankar Saha) and gives his insight on the importance of SAP MII and shop floor visibility to SAP users.

Thomas Wailgum, Senior Editor of CIO.com and the man behind the "Enterprise Software Unplugged" blog, is a self-described "wiseass." Those who follow his blog know that he isn't afraid to mix it up a little bit and poke a little fun at ERP heavyeights. What you might not know is that Thomas has been at CIO.com for 13 years - an amazingly long time given the ups and downs of dotcoms and online media. I wanted to get Thomas on a podcast and ask him how the ERP market has changed over his years at CIO.com, what he has learned from his interviews with CIOs, and get his take on the pros and cons of SAP in today's market. Thomas is also a fun ERP presence on Twitter, so you may want to follow him there.

What's the best way to overcome inaccurate perceptions? By gathering comprehensive data. And what's the best way to put a vendor in context? Study the broader market. Eric Kimberling, President of Panorama Consulting, does both of these things in the ERP space. To get a better handle on keys to SAP project success (and how to avoid failure), as well as the impact of SaaS and the key skills ERP users should be cultivating, I invited Eric to join me and to share Panorama's findings with JonERP listeners. I also put him on the JonERP hot seat and asked him to make his own recommendations for SAP's future direction.

Welcome to the first edition of The ERP Lounge: Misadventures and Opportunities in SAP Consulting, the new podcast series from JonERP.com! The ERP Lounge is the new "long form" podcast series that features freewheeling, in-depth discussions on the hard truths and real opportunities in the SAP skills marketplace. Join Jon and Brian for this 55 minute inaugural edition as they take you inside their vision of The ERP Lounge. Learn why they decided to create this new podcast series, what the structure of the series will be, and listen in on the regular features like "SAP Skills that are Hot/and "Not." This first edition also includes a tribute to the SAP independent consultant, and a hashing out of the differences between a "do as you're told" SAP contractor and a "tell the truth" consultant. And yes, this special series gets its own rockin' musical intro!

Michael Doane, the subject of my first JonERP.com podcast, joins me again for number 50 (though it's the 49th loaded in the system). We celebrate with a new JonERP musical intro(!) as well as an in-depth conversation with the inimitable Michael Doane, author of the classic New SAP Blue Book and the upcoming SAP Green Book: Thrive After Go-Live.

Usually I am the one doing the podcast interviews. But this time around, Muhammad Shaamel, podcaster, blogger, and SAP ERP consultant, turned the tables on me. During this twenty-six minute interview, Muhammad asks me for my take on what's hot and what's not from an SAP skills perspective. He had some excellent questions for me, including the value of certification and whether or not BPM skills can help an SAP consultant.

In this impromptu podcast, inspired by a Twitter conversation thread, Jon Reed interviews Marco ten Vaanholt, VP of the SAP Community Network and the Global Head of the SAP BPX and Business Objects Communities, on how individuals (and project teams) can make a "BPX business case" for SAP TechEd. (Follow Marco on Twitter, and follow SAP TechEd on Twitter.

Sometimes in the glitz of Sapphire announcements, the ASUG part of ASUG/Sapphire gets less attention. To learn more about why the ASUG part of the conference matters - not only to SAP users, but to industry analysts - I invited Gretchen Lindquist, SAP Mentor and stalwart ASUG volunteer, to share her views on ASUG/Sapphire 2009 and the pros and cons of co-location. I also had the opportunity to ask Gretchen about trends in SAP Security from the vantage point of her work as chair of the SAP Security Interest Group (SIG) for ASUG.