Career Profile - Nicola Davidson
Job title: SAP MM Consultant
Qualifications: BSc (Hons) Technology & Business
Career history
After leaving The Robert Gordon University I joined Atlantic Telecom as a business analyst before moving into a similar position at Aberdeen City Council. It was a huge culture shock moving into the public sector but a great experience to have. During my time there I was given the opportunity of diversifying into project management and gained my PRINCE2 qualification which is an industry-wide recognised standard in managing IT projects. While not “hands-on” with any IT systems at the council, I was involved with managing the funding and the procurement of them. This was something I always enjoyed and was the reason I moved into a trainee role at Absoft.
What does your job involve?
Initially I worked within Absoft’s SAP support team where I was able to use my understanding of procurement processes to analyse client problems. This was an ideal place to begin as you are responsible for dealing with problems from a wide range of customers and can learn a great deal very quickly. I am now on-site at one of Absoft’s clients in Aberdeen within the SAP project team. My work is extremely varied and ranges from supporting users, configuring the SAP system to meet the needs of the business and training the users.
Best bits
I have been fortunate to go on a number of external training courses, one of which was in South Africa which assisted in my development both as a consultant and in my knowledge of SAP. At one stage I took on a training role and since then I’ve developed and delivered training sessions for an oil and gas client in Thailand and Dubai. These are countries I probably wouldn’t have visited and it has been great to have the opportunity to work overseas.
Worst bits
The extra hours that have to be put in around important deadlines are not good at the time – but it all pays off in the end.
Advice to others
Sometimes people think that if you are in IT you sit in a darkened room with a PC. Really, we need to be able to connect with clients in order to understand their business and processes; a good consultant works with the client to ensure that they get the best from their system. I believe that good communication is one of the strongest skills you require if you want to become a good consultant.
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