I want to work as SAP Pre Sales Consultant.

I want to work as SAP Pre Sales Consultant.

There are many SAP Consultants who want to shift their career from Consulting to Pre Sales or Sales function. I meet many SAP Consultants who are working in SAP Projects who feel that they want to move to Pre Sales area. Many of them are not aware about the role, the pre-requisites and the responsibilities associated with a Pre Sales job in SAP practice.

The Pre Sales function in SAP Practice, in any Organization depends on the size of SAP practice, the various products/services offerings and the size of the projects, the practice is handling. There may be other criteria also.

In many organizations the Pre sales function is part of Sales function or in some cases is part of Delivery organization. It depends on the organization and will vary from org to org.

Now let us understand the Pre Sales Consultant profile in a general:

• The Pre Sales Consultant is expected to possess an expert level knowledge of SAP product and the various solution offerings. In most of the cases, he is part of Sales team formed for an opportunity in sales process.
• Th Pre Sales Consultant normally gets involved in meetings with Customer to understand Customer requirements, expectations from SAP product solution.
• He gets involved in Product/offerings presentations and demonstrations if required.
• He is considered as Solution expert and if required, will get further inputs/support from delivery team.
• He gets involved in proposal preparation and subsequent discussions as & when required till closure of the deal.
• Gets involved in post sales support for project delivery initiation. He is the link between the Sales cycle and the delivery execution.
• Depending on size of organization and the sales opportunities, he may get involved in multiple engagements.

If the SAP practice is large enough then many organizations have a large team of Pre Sales and there are various roles within the Pre sales team. These are Pre Sales Consultant, Expert Pre sales Consultants, Solution Architect etc..

Looking at the above, it’s very clear that unless you have a good understanding/knowledge of SAP product/solution offerings of your organization, it’s very difficult to perform as Pre Sales Consultant.