I walked into a Karen Millen shop the other day to buy my girlfriend a gift. For those who are not familiar with the name, Karen Millen is a designer clothing brand that makes beautiful and unique evening wear. I picked up a nice brown shirt dress. The price was about 3 times what I would normally pay for a dress but hey, it’s my girlfriend’s birthday. I wrapped it, took it home, she unwrapped it, loved it and all was well.
Perceived value of the SAP certification
Two weeks later, I walked into Debenhams, a popular departmental store in the UK and here I saw almost the same dress same design for 1/4 the price. I felt ripped off. The funny part of it is, if I was going to choose between those two dresses to buy, I still would have chosen the one from Karen Millen. Why? the reason is the perceived value of a Karen Millen dress is greater than that bought for 1/4 the price at Debenhams.
This is the same reason why SAP certification training is so expensive to get. SAP is like a designer label of software companies that everyone wants to have.
Driving sales through perceived value
I will give you another example of perceived value driving sales. The iPhone is now the most popular camera on Flickr, how can this be? The iPhone camera has only 2.5 megapixels,and did not even record video until the latest version was released. There are cheaper phones with 8 megapixels and video-recording capabilities, why are they not the most popular cameras on Flickr? Perceived value.
Many people would like to have an iPhone but cannot afford it, which inflates the value even more. In the same way many would like to get a SAP certification but cannot afford it. SAP can use this to sell premium coaching to companies combined with premium software.
Raise the bar and filter out the unwanted
Another reason is SAP will like to raise the bar so only really serious and committed people will actually take the certification. For example, there are tons of Microsoft Certified Professionals out there, I personally know of 7 of them and most of them just have it for the sake of having it.
I have enrolled in a SAP training institute in London. I am doing the Business Intelligence course over the next 2 months. I will be posting my notes here for you to follow. If you are interested, make sure you subscribe to my blog and watch out for the series of posts.
How to increase your chances of starting a successful SAP career
You might be asking yourself,
Is SAP right for me?
What are my chances of getting a good SAP job?
The good news is you are not alone. A lot of people have the same questions as well. What is even better news? I have written a series of articles that answer these questions and many more on SAP Unveiled.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi,I need your SAP notes.Plz send it to my email ID
Hi Sathish,
If you subscribe to my SAP tips newsletter, you will get a summary of the notes every week.
James
Dear sir,
it was great reading, but the above reading does not make any economic sense, nor it is true that only the rich have branins, i am working in sap since 10 years now, i underwent training with a small institute in Bangalore under the name as United systems, i have worked in almost 6 sap consulting companies from 10 years, i have come across 90% of people who have taken up sap jobs are from small institutes and less than 10% account for candidates with sap certification.
Moreover while selection of candidates it is there talent, communication, domain experience and ablity to handle the project which is more important than there certification, certification has no value or meaning in SAP job world.
So people who have no money do not consider your self as unfortunate takeup training from any small institutes and practise well to perfect, i can assure you that you stand 90% chance of getting a sap job than those persuing certification training.
it is a myth that only rich can get into sap, it is 100% wrong, the best of branins in SAP are from small institutes who have spent about less than 500$ to perfect it and succeed.
Ranjitha
SAP Program Manager at SAP LABS
Ranjitha,
As many people have already pointed out, SAS certification is not the be all and and all. For someone like me who want to get his foot on the SAP door and does not have opportunity to train with the company we are with, what is the alternative? How do we go about it? By taking the certification, I am sending a message across potential employers that I am committed to learning the ins and outs of SAP, that I am capable and dedicated.
I am an IT person who has been working in the mainframe space for quite a while now and am good at what I do. However, I recognize that mainframe will not live forever and at some point I must cross over.