SAP stands for "Systems Applications and Products in Data Processing". It is an innovative business software package that is used by more than a hundred major corporations for financial reporting. SAP software package concentrates on Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and its most current version is SAP ERP 7.0 also known as R/3, where R means real time and 3 stands for 3-tier architecture: the database, application server and client.

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Recently, more companies regardless of their size, either small or big require some of their employees to be knowledgeable about SAP. As a result, there is an increase in the number of people getting SAP training. SAP BI training can be taken in three ways and all of them will give a SAP certification. However, you will need to dedicate some time and effort to achieve the certification you need.

Any SAP training partner around the world provides certification courses. In this type of SAP education, you are expected to follow various types of courses that would last for more than a month. In fact, the normal SAP BI training will usually last for 6 months. Although through this method you are accomplishing accredited courses and you will get a personal touch with the trainers, SAP education is still too expensive for your wallet. Apparently, trainees have to pay approximately $10,000 for a certificate course. Of course if you are lucky your business will pay for the training.

In other cases, some people get SAP BI training through an independent SAP training school. This includes seminars or classes related to SAP. Independent SAP training schools provide the same SAP BI training at a cheaper price. You are also getting one-on-one training with the trainers through this independent school. However, the risk of scamming is higher. Some of these independent SAP training schools might be a scam and just want to leech money out on you. As a result, you are spending more than you should have for the training if not having to take it over again. So make sure you do your research and make sure the school is reliable before taking this type of training.

This all leads you to the last training option: interactive online training or SAP training online. SAP Training online allows you to download SAP modules in a variety of different formats. You are also guided with a mixture of audios and videos. The advantage of interactive online SAP Training is you get the essential information at a cheaper price. More so, you can communicate with your online classmates through online forums. Another advantage to this method is your ability to do it at your own pace so you make sure you have the time to learn the material. Currently this seems to be the preferred method of training because of the price, collaborations and various types of presentations. Providing a thorough training plan with the capability of allowing the student to learn at their own pace yet still provide all the training a normal classroom would.

As with any exam, the key to the success with SAP MM Certification lies in the throughout preparation. The preparation requires (1) planning, when you decide what particularly you are going to study and for how much time; and (2) execution, when you actually go through all the material, you decided to include in the preparation, and learn it by heart.

For the second step (execution) you need to have good textbooks and patience. As for the first step you need to find out what you more info are expected to know for SAP Certification. In this task a syllabus for SAP MM Certification can help you, because it provides guidance regarding what topics of SAP MM are included in the exam and what is the overall importance of each topic. Additionally, the syllabus has information about SAP training courses that you might want to consider taking in order to improve your knowledge in a particular domain.

You should normally be able to obtain the syllabus from the official website of SAP Training and Education. However, please note that this website is infamous for its bad structure and difficulties that are associated with the navigation through this website. As soon as you grab your copy of the syllabus try to understand how good you are in each of the SAP areas, which are specified there. You might probably find out that your knowledge of purchasing processes is better than your knowledge of cross functional integration of SD and MM modules. Then you should try to evaluate how much time you need for learning of each of the areas.

This evaluation will depend on three variables: your familiarity with this specific area, the importance of this area at the exam (based on the number of questions coming from this area), and the size of the area (i.e., how much information does it cover). I propose to define these variable on the scale from 1 to 10 and then use the formula 1/3 * familiarity + 1/3 * importance + 1/3 * size.

Having ranked all the areas from the exam in this manner, you should divide the time, which is available for preparation, proportionally to the calculated ranks. Please note that in any case, it is highly advisable to start the preparation at least two weeks in advance of the SAP MM Certification. The overall advice is that the SAP MM Syllabus should be used in order to plan you preparation as effective as possible and do not waste your precious time on unimportant topics.