Blog
14 Nov 2024

UK & Ireland SAP User Group launches S/4HANA Academy to address business and technical skills gap

London – 14 November 2024 – The UK & Ireland SAP User Group (UKISUG) today announced the launch of its S/4HANA Academy aimed at addressing the current skills shortage in the market for both SAP business and technical consultants. As UKISUG expands its education mandate, the S/4HANA Academy will provide members with a one-stop shop to upskill, reskill and develop the next-generation of SAP talent.

The launch of the S/4HANA Academy comes at a time when the latest research from UKISUG has revealed:

  • 63% of organisations are concerned that a lack of available skills will impact the speed at which they can move to S/4HANA.

  • 86% of organisations say insufficient hands-on training prevents them from maximising their SAP investments (30% say it does ‘a lot’).

  • 72% of organisations are concerned about people with SAP skills leaving.

“SAP skills availability continues to be a concern, as more organisations embark on their S/4HANA journey,” said Craig Dale, Chief Executive, UKISUG. “We have identified a lack of alignment in training materials, gaps within existing content and insufficient hands-on training as the three main gaps facing organisations today. Through working closely with the UKISUG user and partner community, our S/4HANA Academy aims to provide our members with the skills they need to implement, support and maintain S/4HANA.”

The S/4HANA Academy will comprise a mix of face-to-face and online learning, which will be tailored to different user personas - IT Project Management, Database Admin, Infrastructure Lead, Basis Specialist, Developer, Enterprise Architect and Business Analyst.

The S/4HANA Academy course has six modules, which will be delivered in person, with separate learning journeys for technical end users and functional/business users. The six modules are:

  • S/4HANA Overview - an overview of S/4HANA implementations based on various scenarios.

  • Solution Architecture - knowledge and skills on the design and development of database architecture, application architecture and solution monitoring for S/4HANA implementations.

  • Network and Security - knowledge and skills on network and security configuration for S/4HANA on-premise and cloud implementations.

  • Application Development - knowledge and skills on application development for S/4HANA implementations based on various scenarios.

  • Analytics and Data Management - knowledge and skills on SAP analytics and data management for S/4HANA based on various scenarios.

  • Customisation – knowledge and skills regarding customisations, based on various scenarios.

Feedback from the initial S/4HANA Academy pilot has been extremely positive, and the first official course will be launched in Q1 2025.

“Our S/4HANA Academy brings together a unique combination of conceptual content from SAP alongside empirical knowledge from the UKISUG user and partner community. Ultimately, it is our aim to develop a series of academies which are aligned to different SAP technologies. We believe that offering a dedicated private learning platform can make a significant contribution towards re-skilling and upskilling the SAP community,” added Dale.

About UK & Ireland SAP User Group

The UK & Ireland SAP User Group’s membership is open to users of all SAP products in the UK and Ireland. Membership consists of organisations from all sectors and of all sizes and includes some of the largest private companies and most significant public sector organisations in the UK and Ireland.

If you would like further information regarding the UK & Ireland SAP User Group, please visit https://www.sapusers.org/

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