Welcome Corner Discussions
Join the Welcome Corner discussion, where newcomers and community veterans are encouraged to introduce themselves, learn about others, and build their networks.
cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Can you remember the first time you heard of SAP

Ruthvik
Active Contributor

Hello Coffee Corner folks,

when was the first time you heard about or saw SAP, can you recall those early carrier days of yours? 

By Today I completed my 10 Years journey in the SAP World 

#SAPCarrier #SAPLife

 

Thanks & Regards
Ruthvik Chowdary
241 REPLIES 241

Thorsten_Franz
Explorer

That's a nice question. In 1998, I was a Linux, network, and security freak (constantly trying to hack into one system or another) working in my first proper job as the lead IT support guy at my then employer. I also helped the server and network admin who was an older guy who didn't know nearly as much as I did and just wanted to have quiet days. I had earned a good reputation in the organization. 

There was a large department (80-100 people of 400 total) that was developing and maintaining a software suite for the mother company, Germany's largest health insurance provider. When I had worked there for one year in IT support, they turned that software development department into a new company and the freshly-minted CEO asked me if I wanted to join and work as a developer in the SAP field.

I didn't know anything about SAP and my first association were blue suits and business people, so I asked: "SAP - isn't that like Scientology? Anyway, count me in - I'm always happy to learn new things. In one week I'll be an SAP developer."

And so it went down.

Cheers,

Thorsten 

Dear Thorsten, We are so pleased to have you in the SAP Community many years later. A huge thank you for this. Have a terrific week!


----- Find out What's New in SAP Community - click on "Options - Subscribe" today!-----

Usharsree_7999
Participant

Today I completed 15 years in SAP. 

0 Kudos

Congrats! Cheers to 15(+) more!!😁


----- Find out What's New in SAP Community - click on "Options - Subscribe" today!-----

0 Kudos

Thanks Stephanie looking forward to amazing 15+

former_member6619
Discoverer

My father was a manager at a SAP customer during the implementation of the HR. On one hand side he was frustrated by the complexity and cost involved. On the other hand he was impressed how you could describe the HR domain using the SAP database, transactions and processes. Most importantly he has always been saying - these SAP people, they're incredibly smart and professional. If you want to work with smart and professional, work with the SAP people. So I did just that. Met many many smart and professional people, many with good heart as the cherry on top.

Cheers Otto

mspanowsky
Newcomer

My "first time" was in 1989. I was an intern and my company was searching for a new "financials" system. I was one of the few who knew "something about computers" and so I got the task to help search for the optimal solution. SAP R/2 with a brand new RK-P "module" was the only product to fulfill the requirements (at least according to the silver brochures 😉 and I liked the revolutionary concept of configuration instead of coding. R/3 was not ready yet - that's how I got my first SAP project: R/2 5.0 on Siemens BS2000 with RF, RK, RK-P, RM-MAT and a little later RM-INST. The rest is history 🙂

arindamsur
Participant

Yes. Somewhere around 2014,

Open SAP SCN Community Account in.....

arindamsur_0-1648622639952.png

 

andrew_lunde
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert

I had been hired for a job at the Weather Channel, but they recinded it at the last minute.  A friend of mine mentioned an ad for a position at SAP.  Met my (soon to be)manager at a coffee-shop and interviewed for an hour.  On the drive home, got a call that they wanted me.  That was 10 years ago.  -Andrew

0 Kudos

Did you pay for the interviewer's coffee? 😉

Florian
Active Contributor

A teacher of me long ago (something between 2004 and 2008) asked me if I can help him solve a problem with ABAP.. never heard before and thought never will touch it afterwards again...

Mithun_Kumar
Active Participant

Hi SAPians,

I first heard of SAP when I got the interview call for recruitment drive in India back in 2004. Had no idea what company is this. So took a look the (then) website which looked so plain and boring that I still couldn't fathom how the company really is. Even through the interviews I had an impression that it's just another IT services company like IBMs, Accentures, etc.

Only once I actually got my offer letter, and went in to join, is when I realized how different a world SAP really is. Now after 12 years of hard-core product development in SAP Labs, I'm into the other side of this world, the SAP consulting 🙂

Former Member

Almost a decade back in Gurgaon on my way to the office saw a big banner with SAP all over it. Did not bother about it and guess what I was a fresher and my employer had put me in a Java training that time. After 2 months , we were moved to ABAP and for almost a year it felt like a shock but then when I started working on projects it became a part of the life. ABAP is not perfect I miss JAVA but it's an amazing language and the scope of the work is amazing. 

Matt_Fraser
Active Contributor

For me it was on the radio, on NPR. No kidding! It was ~1995-1996, and I listened to NPR a lot on my car radio during my commutes to/from work (I was a network administrator at the time). NPR is "ad-free," but they have sponsors, and I kept hearing SAP's sponsorship message. I didn't really know what SAP was at the time, something about "ERP," but then my employer started a project to seek a replacement for their old RS-6000-based homegrown MRP system. Initially, SAP was not one of the candidates, as no one there had heard of them (!!), but as I knew the project was supposed to be for one of these so-called "ERP" systems, I mentioned to the project manager that maybe he should check out this "SAP" software and see if it would fit the bill. I'm sure you've guessed by now that SAP ended up winning the bid and being selected, which led to me learning to become the Basis administrator for this new software, which then led to me leaving that company and going to work for the consulting firm that had done our implementation...

Even after leaving the US years ago, I tune on to NPR every time I am in the US. In San Francisco Bay Area it is KQED. Listening to "Fresh Air" and "All things considered" 📻

In Seattle it's KUOW. I work from home now, so no more car radio during the commute. For a long time, NPR was the station on my bedside alarm clock, so I would wake up to "Morning Edition." Then that clock broke and the replacement doesn't have a radio, it just plays pre-programmed tunes. It's a nice alarm, but I do kind of miss listening to those few minutes of news before motivating myself to get up.

former_member412
Participant

hi,

Nice question. 
The first time I heard of SAP was when I read a journal (or was it a magazine?) in our college library at IIT, Bombay. 
The magazine itself was published out of Europe. I saw an advertisement for SAP R/3 in the magazine and understood that it was a so called ERP software. 
then, as I tried to learn more about SAP, I heard it’s competition was Baan, and it stands for Systems, Applications, and Products

William_Laverde
Product and Topic Expert
Product and Topic Expert

The first time I heard about SAP was back in Uni. Someone was talking about R3 and how it was changing to ECC. I did not pay much attention at the time but should have because I became an SAP employee two years later, and I love it here. 

Dario
Explorer

1997. 

I was working for BASF in Argentina and received an invitation to join the team (as production expert) to implement SAP 3.1 ( I guess ) in Latin America. My answer: To implement what? 

There started my career, 25 years ago. 

 

AngelaMaher
Newcomer

Showing my age here!  It was the summer of 1994 and the CFO of the company I was working at in Canada came to me and said "Hey, we are starting a North American system implementation in SAP. The project will be 18 months and is based in the US,, you interested in being on the team there?". Almost 28 years later and here I am still!

It sounds like 'right place at the right time' to me 🙂 Great story!


----- Find out What's New in SAP Community - click on "Options - Subscribe" today!-----

Jeansy
Active Contributor

I heard about SAP for the first time during my studies, but at that time I had no idea that SAP would later become my main topic in my future career.
At a party, a friend told me that he worked in the SAP area and it sounded exciting, so I applied for the development area in a SAP-consulting company. However, at that time I had so little idea about SAP that I sent my application to the "SAP Basis" department, thinking that this would be the area for software development 😄

Luckily, my application was redirected internally and I ended up becoming an ABAP developer 🙂

MelvinButton
Explorer

1994 - working night shift

LuizSouza
Participant

I just remember that I wanted to learning Java in 2004 , and then the company said : No, We have positions only for ABAP Programmers. So since that day, I cant see myself living without SAP family ! 

Luiz Souza
SAP Senior Consultant

Sal
Employee
Employee

It was summer of 99 and I was working one of my first IT jobs as a network admin in the MIS Dept. of a textiles manufacturing company in Anaheim, SoCal. I was sitting in my manager's office waiting for a meeting to begin and I grabbed one of the industry magazines that was sitting on her coffee table (can't remember the name of the mag) and I was flipping through it, specifically looking at ads from different vendors because I was also responsible for creating the company's garment catalog (Adobe PageMaker - wayback playback). 

I saw an ad from SAP and I still remember the older logo (no longer in use) and I was left thinking - wow these guys must be super proud about their product if their logo is so plain-jane. 

(More than 22 years later, I would learn first-hand just how valid that belief was!) 

StephanieMarley
Community Advocate
Community Advocate

Sal, I started in 1999 too. I had a similar reaction - and wondered how I spent so much time in consumer products and fell into a job at SAP. 22+ years later -- the blue logo now feels like a staple in my life. I believe that ths best is yet to come for SAP!


----- Find out What's New in SAP Community - click on "Options - Subscribe" today!-----

0 Kudos

Oh wow, I wasn't aware that you are with SAP also for such a long time. Great! 😃


----- Stay up-to-date with SAP Community and subscribe to What's New today! -----

KlausMerx
Associate
Associate

In the years 1982 to 1988 I studied Computer Engineering ("Informatik") at the University of Karlsruhe. Since I grew up in the Heidelberg / Wiesloch / Walldorf area, I was often asked whether I will later join the growing software company SAP. But business software was not my favorite topic, I rather focussed on technology (especially user interfaces). So I repeatingly replied that SAP will most likely not be my choice. Nevertheless I applied for an SAP job in early 1989, and I learned, that SAP also owns a techical foundation called "Basis". 

So, in 1989 - 1993 my first task at SAP was to program a graphical user interface called SAPGui (on OS/2 Presentation Manager). Thanks to Dr. Albert Becker, Uwe Ringhof (†),  Bernhard Esslinger and many other very competent colleagues I learned a lot during these years.  

avsalynin
Active Contributor

As far as I remember it was 2008 😉

Abinathsiva
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Yes

mohdsap
Active Participant

Fore it was like rocket science. I kept thinking how to call it S.A.P or Sap so it was SAP. For my family also it is greatful and confusing. At all it has been great journey with it now. It is a impressive profession

VijayetaSharma
Active Contributor

Fresh out of college, completed projects in different areas (JAVA, .Net, some Python and C++) with a rookie tendency of solving every challenge via coding, Received job offer from 3 companies.

Biased towards two of them and feeling confused at first. Then one of them file for bankruptcy. Made my decision easier and gave me a early taste of uncertainty in this field as well.

I was part of of small batch to undergo SAP BI (name changed couple of times BW then BI then BW again). This is the first time I was made familiar with SAP. Off-course my seniors (from college) mentioned it couple of times before, though this is the first time I have gave some serious thought.

Gone through couple of up and downs of market already, I am glad that I was part of that small batch, even if at that time I didn't know anything about it 🙂

Pooja_DS
Participant

A friend of a friend working in SAP domain, I heard by my friend about this at Xerox shop when I was in final year B.E then surprisingly I got a chance to start my career in SAP domain. #SAP

RAHEEL_BABAR
Active Contributor

By luck, in 2013 I got my first job in SAP 🙂 and that was first time i heard about SAP.

By today I completed 25 years journey in the SAP world 😄

0 Kudos

Nice- I'm at 23 in a few days! It feels like a lifetime and has been well worth it for me too! Congrats to you.


----- Find out What's New in SAP Community - click on "Options - Subscribe" today!-----

karimrombi
Advisor
Advisor

Yes. Well, I was in university and it was the year 1994, so shortly after World War II 😅
In the preparation of a lecture I had to give on Information Management, I researched the Open Systems Interconnection model and found SAP as a good example for the application layer.
Ten years later, a headhunter asked me to join SAP, BTW 😀

JuergenMairSAP
Advisor
Advisor

The first time I heard of SAP was in the early 1990s. I worked as a developer (Cobol...) in the financial accounting area, for a manufacturing company. I read an article in a computer magazine about SAP, since then I kept an eye on SAP as I was impressed that there is a German software vendor with the growth and the size SAP already had then (around 3000 employees). Some years later there was a discussion in the company about using standard software and it was decided to continue with individual development.

Then, around 10 years later, after focussing more on IT technology I made a change in my career with the clear target to work for a software vendor. I applied at SAP as a Technical Consultant and it was one of the best choices I ever made! 

The company I worked for in the 90s is also a large SAP customer in the meantime, and I delivered services for my former team mates some years ago...

osoriom1
Explorer

My SAP journey came 3 years ago when our company transitioned to Synergy.  Before that, I had never heard of SAP.  Not knowing what my responsibility will be in this new transition, the company opened up new positions where I landed as a Program Specialist, this meant me becoming the ITC and expert in Master Data updates, prototype order creation, BOM, and this thing called Routings.  Along with this I had to learn what Master Data was and how it impacted the business, not only that but also learn about the Parts Master Data attributes and how it affected finance.  This was a lot to consume in such a short time of training.  Along the way we learned the do's and what not to do in the system.  Now 3 years into it this grew so much in me that I challenged my self to learn more, I learned that this system is very powerful and it feels good to understand some of it.  I decided to pursue a more challenging position in a different company where I would be the TeamCenter/SAP MASTER DATA Analyst  for Operations where I will be given the opportunity to learn and expand my skills in a new world.   I am so excited and never thought how much there is to learn about this.  My goal is to get SAP certified and become a SAP champion for my company.

AlSaawi1
Explorer

Hello everyone!

I am still new and learning. First time i heard about the system when i did my 6-month COOP training program at a private company which they were using Microsoft Dynamics (Legacy). It was 2017/2018 when i began learning about ERP systems, and understood the most competitive ones which is between SAP and ORACLE. I believe sap has the potential to become the market leading system, if not already confirmed as best system.