Enterprise Resource Planning by Azeem Qaiser

This post is part of the series of Career Guidance.

One industry which always looks for innovation, challenges, out of the box ideas and fresh talent is IT industry. It’s a vast industry with specialist for each and every aspect related to IT. One of the most essential and popular forms of IT is an ERP system, which has a service-oriented architecture with modular hardware and software units or “services” that communicate on a local area network. The modular design allows a business to add or reconfigure modules (perhaps from different vendors) while preserving data integrity in one shared database that may be centralized or distributed.

Our contributor today has a truly global IT experience and currently he is working with Emirates Group in Dubai, UAE. Let’s hear what Azeem has to share with us from his own experience.

Name: Azeem Qaiser
Qualification: MCA
Years of Experience: 4+
Current Organization: Emirates Group IT
Previous Organizations: NetEdge Computing Solutions
Your email id:qaiser.azeem@gmail.com
Location: Dubai,UAE

Industry:
Technical Consulting – ERP (Enterprise resource planning) Broadly IT

How to get in?
Passion to learn is required to get into this industry. ERP is one of the vast areas of IT consulting.
I really don’t know if you have any degree to get into this. I have seen people with simple ERP certification from Oracle, SAP and IBM working in this field and people like me who have spent 6 years studying to master computers. But yes what is important to get into this industry to learn more about domains than technology. Even for the technical people in this industry learning about the domain is important although the point is debatable.

Opportunities in India and abroad
If you are in technical consulting then the world is your market. The opportunities are good in India and Abroad. Keep in mind that you have to travel in this field.

Pros
It’s a very good area of IT to work in.
Good remunerations. (Depends on the company but mostly good)
Good growth prospects.
If you are someone who can communicate and handle customers then you can move into functional consulting (More Money). It’s a better place to be into (functional consulting), for some of the technical consultants.

Cons
A lot of travelling is required, especially if you are in the core implementation team.

5 Years – 10 Years down the line
In a long run, yes it’s safe to jump in. ERP is required by almost every company and size doesn’t matter. Some manage it manually and then move to ERP solutions and some start with small ERP solutions and move to big ones. So it’s a safe bet if you are looking at ERP as your career.

Precautions in current scenario (Financial meltdown): Stick to the basics.

Best Companies to work with: Oracle, SAP, IBM and GE

Myths
Fewer IT staff if ERP is implemented. Not True.
Data Security is compromised. Not true, as it increases with ERP implementation. Can’t explain here. Why?  :)