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In
India, like anywhere else in the world, Enterprise Resource Planning
(ERP) implementation in any organisation has never been much welcomed
by employees, thanks to the inherent human reluctance in accepting
change and the fear of retrenchment. It is a skill which was once
mastered by reluctant learners, who now command premium price in
the recruitment market. Today, recognising the potential of ERP
training, professionals from as diverse streams as sales and marketing
to human resources to production planning and supply chain management,
are ready to pay through their nose to get themselves trained and
certified for a much sought after global career.
From
the corporate standpoint, the irony of the situation is that while
they spend whopping amounts on ERP software and implementation,
training (of employees) is usually neglected. Experts have in fact
always attributed ERP disasters (which are not so uncommon), to
lack of training. “Companies that do not allocate adequate
budgets for training are likely to go through sub-optimal, if not
failed implementations, and therefore inadequate returns on investment
made,” says S Narayanan, country manager, Knowledge Services,
SAP. He points out that according to a recent Gartner Group research,
organisations that met their ERP goals spent 17 percent of the total
budget (including software and implementation), on training. However,
companies that spend less than 13 percent of their total budget
on training are three times more in number. It is also necessary
that training should be provided at all levels in the organisation—from
the top management to the core team in charge of the implementation,
to the end users.
Course
modules
 The
common ERP packages are—SAP, Oracle Financials, Baan, PeopleSoft
and JD Edwards. Among these, SAP courses are most popular. Training
is offered on various functional modules like Financials, Materials
Management, Sales & Distribution, Production Planning, Plant
Maintenance, Human Resource Management, etc, besides technical courses
on Basic Administration & ABAP (Advanced Business Application
Programming). These courses are offered by SAP Education Partners—Siemens
Info Systems Limited (SISL) at Delhi and Chennai, and Genovate Systems
in Mumbai. New dimension applications like Supply Chain Management,
Business Information Warehouse, Enterprise Portals, etc, are offered
by SAP at Bangalore and Mumbai. “SAP has entered into a partnership
with these companies only after carefully evaluating their capability.
We have service level agreements with partners and delivery of training
courses is monitored continuously. Finally, certification examinations
are directly administered and controlled by SAP through stringent
online certification exams,” informs Narayanan about their
quality control initiatives. Future plans include setting up a new
SAP Education Centre at Hyderabad by SISL very soon.
SAP
with its 18,000 customer base worldwide provides great career opportunities
for those trained on its packages. In 2001, more than 1,900 people
were trained in India by SAP and its education partners and over
762 professionals were certified. The requirement continues to grow
with the expanding customer base in India and abroad. Genovate Solutions,
the only SAP Academy partner in Western India, is also the sole
partner in Singapore and Malaysia. A five weeks full-time course
comes for a fee of Rs 2.5 lakh per module (inclusive of examination
fee). Despite the high course fee, the response has been tremendous
ever since Genovate started its Mumbai operations a few months earlier.
“There are a lot of professionals who intend to upgrade their
skills or look out for better prospects. The market for SAP professionals
is on the rise and this has triggered the good response,” says
Krishnan Iyer, manager-operations of Genovate Systems. He adds that
the participants should have at least three to four years of functional
experience. Participants are both individual students and corporate
sponsored. “The 25-day programme puts one through rigorous
training, sometimes participants put in about 12 hours a day, seven
days a week,” informs Fabian M Ferreira, manager-corporate
sales, Genovate. The faculty comprises trainers with eight to ten
years of strong functional experience, who have implemented one
to two lifecycles.
Narayanan
reveals that increasing demand for trained SAP consultants has resulted
in many unauthorised training centres in Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai
and Chennai. “These centres lure people by offering SAP training
and assured placements. Such training is illegal and it does not
meet the stringent quality standards of SAP nor prepares the student
to be a certified consultant,” he warns, adding that spending
money on unauthorised centres is not recognised in the SAP world.
Mumbai-based
United Systems Infotech also offers training on Oracle Financials,
PeopleSoft and JD Edwards ERP packages. Demand for these is however
limited and the institute requires students to give one week’s
prior notice to arrange for a consultant to organise Oracle Financials
and PeopleSoft classes. “Training on JD Edwards software is
done only for corporates, but the demand has been less,” says
Asawari, assistant centre manager, United Systems Infotech. The
course fee for each module is Rs 35,000 and the duration is either
one month (full-time) or two months (part-time), for each. The SP
Jain Institute of Management & Research in Mumbai had earlier
conducted a few Baan classes, which have now been disbanded.
Clarifying
the concepts
Before
initiating the ERP implementation, it is necessary for an organisation
to develop a curriculum that identifies and explains the different
business processes that will be affected by it. Pradeep Khetan of
the Institute of Manufacturing Resource Management of India (IMRMI)
explains why: “With ERP all business functions will use the
same set of data and information in a single integrated system that
will affect each other in many inconvenient ways. Therefore, it
is a must that users from each business function understand how
they will be affected by others. In short, the education and training
must not only be broader but also integrative.” IMRMI is an
international certification administrator of
US-based
APICS-The Education Society for Resource Management. For successful
ERP implementation it is necessary to understand the concepts behind
it, and this is where the APICS certification comes very useful.
The two internationally recognised courses offered by APICS are—Certified
in Production and Inventory Management (CPIM) and the Certified
in Integrated Resource Management (CIRM) programmes. “These
courses are must for individuals who are working in ERP companies,
consulting and service industries or the companies where ERP gets
implemented,” says Khetan, adding that it will help them in
getting cross-functional knowledge as well as team-based skills.
They will also understand the strategic perspective of their global
enterprise environment.
The
APICS examinations are held at centres in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad,
Mumbai and New Delhi. APICS certification is considered necessary
at the time of recruitment for those ERP professionals who are involved
in development work. “Presently there are at least 450 APICS
certified professionals in India and three to four times the number
in the US who have got certified here,” states Khetan. Many
engineering students at IIT, Powai and the National Institute of
Industrial Engineering (NITIE) are presently preparing for the certification
for lucrative career prospects. Apart from students and beginners,
many senior professionals also(appear) sit for the exams year after
year for greater career opportunities. The CPIM exam fee is Rs 7000
per paper and the CIRM fee is Rs 9000 per paper. Both have five
papers each. It is not uncommon for organisations to lose their
staff after sponsoring them for APICS exams. The certified professionals
evidently leave for greener pastures after possessing the coveted
certification. There are approximately 70,000 to 80,000 CPIMS in
the world and among them 70 percent are in the US.
Interestingly,
ERP implementation continues to be met with resistance in organisations
even as professionals realise the great scope in the international
job market. The situation will probably not change till the top
management do not start taking their decisions on the ERP screen
and formulate an indigenous curriculum for its employees.
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