Nine tips to get started as an SAP CRM consultant
I am a new SAP CRM consultant without real-time experience. Can you give me some advice as I am starting out?

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My advice is to work under an experienced SAP CRM consultant, at least to get experience during one full-cycle CRM implementation. This will provide you with the required practical experience for your resume so you can handle a CRM implementation on your own. The following are high-level suggestions for getting started as a consultant -- keep in mind that this is not an exhaustive list.

1) Understand the client's industry vertical and business model.
2) Study the project methodology if one already exists. Otherwise, suggest a suitable project methodology.
3) Ask questions to find out pain points in the current business process and constraints with the legacy software, if any.
4) Determine the minimum expected business functionality to meet the changed business scenarios, if any.
5) Complete blue prints.
6) Start the configuration and development.
7) Involve the business owners and "super users" very early on to test the CRM software and give feedback on the developed functionality. This eliminates last minute surprises between what is configured and what is expected.
8) Unit testing should be completed before rolling the functionality to integration testing.
9) A complete business validation should be performed and any issues should be fixed before announcing that you are ready to go live.

This was first published in March 2007