The COVID-19 pandemic might have ravaged modern business as we knew it, but that doesn’t mean that business is dead. Regardless of the sector you operate in, hiring an SAP employee to help your company recover is one of the best things you can do to prepare for life after the pandemic.
The Role of SAP in Your Business
Many modern ERP systems use SAP at its core, making SAP professionals a vital part of your business software chain. Regardless of to what extent you utilise SAP, the size of your ERP projects, or your needs, there’s bound to be an SAP professional with the speciality you’re looking for.
Now more than ever, SAP is going to be a vital part of your business’ recovery and futureproofing in preparation for the “new normal”.
Software for Remote Working
According to a Workhuman study, only one-third of Americans worked from home before the pandemic. It’s for this reason that many businesses were unprepared for a pandemic in which employees were expected to work remotely to protect themselves from a novel virus, and this has had significant consequences on the workforce.
McKinsey found that at least 20% of workers felt a consistent pressure to work more while at home, which in part can be attributed to a lack of remote working tools that allow for greater accountability. In that same study, at least 30% of respondents reported consistently feeling exhausted. This goes to show that remote employees have very little in the way of professional or personal support at home, all of which could be addressed by robust software solutions.
With that in mind, hiring a SAP professional can help your business by designing bespoke remote working software solutions to support your employees. Not only that, but SAP consultants will work with you to understand how you can improve your employees’ working day with software. If you’ve already noted an issue similar to the McKinsey study, a SAP professional will build specific software solutions to support the mental health of your employees.
This means that hiring a SAP professional can help your business save money in the long run by improving the efficiency and effectiveness of your employees who are working from home.
Digitizing Your Business
Research shows that online sales rose by 43% in September 2020, and this number is only set to rise with the start of the holiday shopping season. While you might think that this number is only relevant to eCommerce, it just goes to show that more of your customers are conducting their business online. An increase in online sales is only one facet of how businesses have digitized and moved online to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to McKinsey, B2B digital communication is now seen as twice as important as traditional channels. This just goes to show that businesses across the globe are having to adopt to digitization not only because their customers are demanding it, but also because it’ll help keep their business operational in case of lockdowns and stay-at-home orders.
One of the largest challenges that often comes with business digitization, particularly for older businesses that may still be working with outdated processes, is the need for robust back-end software to handle data requests, incoming orders, communications, and more.
This is where a SAP professional comes in. An SAP consultant can discuss how to improve your current back-end software to make the digital customer experience more streamlined, making your digitization strategy more effective. An SAP developer, meanwhile, can build you a bespoke back-end software solution that perfectly fits your needs.
Improved Cyber Security
With businesses increasingly moving online, there’s been an inevitable rise in cybercrime and other digital security issues.
According to the latest Europol report on cybercrime, not only are crimes increasing, but threat actors are changing how they operate in the wake of the pandemic. Ransomware attacks, for instance, are becoming more targeted, meaning that your business is potentially at risk.
In addition, with more employees working remotely, there is the additional threat of man-in-the-middle attacks that take place on unsecured WiFi networks in places like coffee shops or bars.
A SAP cyber security consultant can help you to address these issues by examining your current software for any potential security issues, as well as showing you what aspects of your in-house software needs fixing to maintain security. Meanwhile, a specialised SAP developer can attempt to fix any security issues, or work with you to build a more robust software stack that has improved security features.
Hiring Remote SAP Employees
If the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us anything about working conditions, it’s that with the right technology in place, employees are just as proficient at their work at home as they are in the office. Software organizations in particular have learned that developers, consultants, testers, and other professionals are able to collaborate and deliver projects remotely.
There’s never been a better time to hire a SAP employee for your business, as the barriers of location are now less meaningful than they were. While many organizations may still prefer their remote employees to travel to the office on occasion, you aren’t stuck looking only at SAP candidates in your local area.
Not only can this save you a small fortune in paying relocation and office expenses, but it also gives you more access to talented professionals who live outside of your town or city. This means that you’re less limited by the local talent pool, and you’re more likely to hire someone with experience in your sector.
It’s worth remembering that SAP developers in particular may already be accustomed to remote working, as research shows that allowing employees to work from home in some capacity has been a rising trend since 2005. In addition, consultation can easily be performed remotely with video conferencing tools, and development is a practice that lends itself to home working.
So, while some of your employees that have not previously worked from home might be struggling to adapt, SAP professionals have a head start on the remote working lifestyle.
Future-Proofing Your SAP Team
One of the biggest benefits of hiring a SAP professional now is that it can help secure your SAP team for the future. As the digital landscape is likely to change as the pandemic progresses, ensuring that you have a SAP professional on your team for the long term means that you have someone on board who can quickly adapt your software to these changes.
While a good SAP professional will have years of experience in working with ERP projects, this is an entirely new challenge facing business software and as such, everyone is learning how to move forwards. With that in mind, hiring a SAP professional sooner rather than later can ensure that they’ve got time to become familiar with the challenges facing your business before any further issues arise.
Money is tight for almost every business operating today, however, hiring a SAP employee is a minor cost when you consider all the ways they can help your business to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. These professionals not only have the skills and knowledge you need to improve your business’ software stack, but they’re also well-versed in building improvements to face challenges both known and unknown.
So, to give your business a fighting chance to weather the COVID-19 storm and recover quickly when the pandemic subsides, you should consider growing your SAP team.
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