SAP FICO ( EPISODE - 08 )

Nilkamal: - Good morning everybody. Wow, all have enrolled for the course. That’s great. So, today, in the 1^st class of our regular course, we will not study, but we will give presentations. Jalan will give everyone a small piece of a paper, where something will be written and you have to express those writings in your own words to the entire class, standing on the dais. I also don’t know, what is written in those small papers. Ok, Jalan has already distributed all the small papers. The person sitting at the right corner of the 1^st bench, that is, Manoj will start the proceeding. See, it will be a continuous process. The moment one person ends, automatically the second person will lead the proceeding. I don’t have to tell or point out anyone. The person sitting next to Manoj is Chaitanya, I hope. Ok, after Manoj ends his part, you will start. You people can also use the marker and the blackboard, if you want.

Manoj: - Hello everyone, I am going to tell you about SAP – EP. EP means Enterprise Portal. Basically, it connects all other SAP applications. Extensible Markup Language (XML), Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) as well as other JAVA connectivity or Netweaver is used here. Thank you.

Chaitanya: - Good morning friends. I will tell you about SAP-CRM. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. For every business management, there will be a vendor and there will be a customer. To excel in business, you need to maintain good relationship with the vendors and customers. SAP- CRM module has been created to help the companies to maintain good relationship with customers and vendors. The Just-In-Time (JIT) strategy is applied in this module only. Not only have that, at present, the SAP – CRM has been fine tuned or classified into another sub-module known as SAP – SRM (Supplier Relationship Management).

Dulal: - Hi, now let me tell you about SAP-SCM and SAP-MM. SCM stands for Supply Chain Management and MM for Materials Management. These two modules sound similar, but have a basic difference. Materials management is totally the inventory management of any company, but SCM tracks the records, when the material changes its value, while it is moving from stores & spares to the production of finished goods. Always remember that SCM gives more emphasis on material cost, because in any manufacturing company, 70% of the total cost of a product is material cost only.

Rinky: - Good morning to all my friends out here. I have got the task to explain you about SAP – APO. Now, what does APO means? APO is Advanced Planning Optimizer. APO is entirely a separate server of SAP, which abides by the ERP concept. APO tracks the sales and orders to produce the goods as per the market demand. For purchasing also, the same theory is applied. Basically, it serves the role of Demand Planning. Thank you.

Sarita: - What is SAP - PLM? It is just the Product Lifecycle Management. It deals with the manufacturing of new products. Mind it, only the new products, but according to the customer needs. For this, a separate analytical server is used.

Ravi: - SAP-HCM means Human Capital Management. I don’t know how, but this module is used to retain the humans in the organization. Therefore, it is evident that Humans are treated as Capital here.

Arindam: - Well, SAP –CPM is all about Corporate Performance Monitors. It analyses the data in accordance to the inflation rate. If a company is estimated to do a profit of 2000 crore in 2012, but did only 1500 crore, then it is a bad performance.

Suhash: - SAP – XI is Exchange Interface. It links non-ERP software to SAP.

Paul: - What is SAP-SEM stands for? It is Strategic Enterprise Management. It focuses on various analytical & strategic approaches, in terms of financial analysis.

Nilkamal: - Thank you everyone for participating. There are other three modules which deal about the control on shareholders and vendors. These are IP (Integrated Planning), BC (Business Consolidation) and FI (Financial Integrals. This is enough for today.

SAP FICO ( EPISODE - 07 )

Jalan: - So, let me now take your feedbacks regarding the demo class that you have attended. How was the demo class?

Paul: - Not bad at all. It was nice. But, if you can tell us the course duration and fees, then only we can take a decision.

Jalan: - Ok, I understand. See, the course duration will be of 120 hours excluding the practical session. There are two labs in this institute. You can avail any one of them for 3 months, after your enrolment date. The timings of the labs are from 10 AM to 9 PM from Monday to Saturday. You can come anytime between 10 AM to 9PM to practice in the lab. Now, regarding the classes; let me tell you that we always have two schedules for classes. One in the morning hours from 9 AM to 11 AM and another one from 5 PM to 7 PM. As you can understand that we also have to work for our clients. This institute is just a part of this IT Company. Yours will be morning batch.

Dulal: - What is the course fee?

Jalan: - It is 10,000 bucks.

Rinky: - you are charging more. Already, many institutes have reduced their course fees due to global recession.

Jalan: - But, this is our rate. Now, it is up to you people to decide whether you will do the course or not.

Arindam: - Mr. Jalan, we want to talk to you in private regarding this thing, a little later.

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Suhash: - Boss, try to understand. If you reduce the course fee to 9000 bucks, then all of us will take this course, and you will not be in a loss. It will be a win-win situation. If you will charge 10,000 bucks, maybe, only 5 students will take the course. But, if you charge 9,000 bucks, then all 9 students will join. Which is profitable, a deal of 50,000 bucks or 81,000 bucks. Just think about it.

Jalan: - Uff, you people are desperate students. Ok, ok, join the regular classes from this Monday.

Paul: - Can we pay the money in installments?

Jalan: - Yes, you can, but you have to pay the first installment on your enrolment day and the next installment within 14 days of the enrolment date.

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Suhash: - dekha, this is known as negotiation skills.

Arindam: - Boss, Mr. Jalan is also not a fool. He accepted the proposal because he will be getting more students through us. Classes will be from Monday to Saturday every week for 2 hours, which is really good for us.

Ravi: - One thing you have to appreciate that Hyderabad is the paradise for IT or Finance students. My girlfriend is in Delhi. There, the institutes are charging minimum 25,000 bucks for teaching SAP FICO. Also, I got a mail from Bangalore. They are charging around 22,000 bucks.

Manoj: - Arrey, phir bhi kam hain. My cousin brother just enrolled for SAP FICO course in an institute of Kolkata. I think that it is ‘Futuresoft Technologies’ in Sector V. They charged him around 35,000 bucks. The classes will be twice a week for 2 hours and you never know, whether the teacher is regular or not, because that’s Kolkata.

SAP FICO ( EPISODE - 06 )

Nilkamal: - I hope that you people have enjoyed your lunch today. So, let us proceed now. But, please don’t fall asleep, because after having a heavy meal, everyone feels sleepy. Whenever you feel sleepy, just ask me questions, automatically, your sleep will go away. Or, if I find anyone sleeping, I will ask him or her, some questions regarding this topic. Anyway, before proceeding further, I want to know, if you people are having any doubts about what I have taught you so far?

Ravi: - Sir, is there any difference between BASIS consultants and ABAP consultants?

Nilkamal: - Well, both of them are Technical consultants only, but their roles are slightly different. A BASIS consultant will be in charge of Hardware engineering, Networking, DBA and System administrative roles, whereas a ABAP consultant will only do the programming with the ABAP language to customize a module or sub-modules as per client’s specifications. Ok, now let me tell you about the architecture of SAP. By the way, what do you understand by the term ‘Architecture’ in the IT world?

Chaitanya: - It is a backbone or the structure of any setup, through which the date transmission will take place.

Nilkamal: - Hmm, it is partially correct, but in this structure, it can follow a hierarchical model or it can have a parallel mode. It can work in unidirectional from one end to the other or it can be multi-directional, which is ‘to and fro’ movement of data. The SAP follows the R/3 architecture.

Sarita: - What is R/3, sir?

Nilkamal: - R/3 is the short form of Real Time 3 –Tier Architecture. SAP has 1^st Tier, 2^nd Tier and 3^rd Tier. Here Tier means different levels. In the 1^st Tier, there is a Database Server. In the 2^nd Tier, there should be at least two Application Servers. One Application Server will be for ABAPers, and the other one for BASIS consultants. In the 3^rd Tier, there are several Presentation Servers. The concept of SAP GUI comes in these Presentations Servers only.

Manoj: - What is GUI?

Dulal: - it is Graphical User Interface only.

Manoj: - So, sir, the functional consultants will be working with this presentation server only.

Nilkamal: - Yes, you are right.

Arindam: - Sir, as a functional consultant, can we edit any system setting?

Nilkamal: - No, you can’t. For that, you need to specify your requirements to the technical consultant. As a functional consultant, you just need to do the proper clicking, right data entries and then generate reports. Suppose, you need to change the limit of minimum balance of an account from 5000 to 2000 and an alert to be sent to the client, whenever the amount goes below the minimum balance. Only technical consultant can do that change by setting triggers. R/3 server is just a little part. The entire landscape of SAP is vast. Functional consultants can start working only after the Implementation Period is completed by the technical consultants.

Rinky: - What is this implementation period?

Nilkamal: - I know that it will be very difficult for you people to understand, as we are not dealing with SAND BOX (Licensed version of SAP), but only the Internet Demonstrative Education System (IDES), which is for students only. See, there is a development server, where the main configurations take place. Then, the request goes to the Testing Server, where full-fledged testing is done. After the completion of testing, the request goes to the Production Server, where the live data gets stored on a real-time basis in the R/3 server. Remember, that no editing can be done here. These live data can be used to generate reports only, but not for analysis. To do the analysis or preparing analytic reports, the data is send to ETL Server, and from there begins another module of SAP, known as SAP BI. BI stands for Business Intelligence. ETL means Extraction, loading and transformation of data. ETL servers work on the mechanism of Data Warehousing, e.g. COGNOS & INFORMATICA software. Let us keep our demo session till here.

SAP FICO ( EPISODE - 05 )

Jalan: - So, are you people liking our SAP FICO classes?

Sarita: - Till now, it is ok. Nilkamal Sir has explained everything in details. He will again take the class after the lunch session.

Jalan: - Yeah, yeah, I know that. Hey, where are you people going?

Suhash: - Why? We are going to have our lunch.

Jalan: - Just take these food coupons. We follow a rule here that on every demo session, whosoever will be invited by us, will be given a free lunch coupon on that day. Arindam, that is why, I told you that, we only allow those students, whom we have emailed to attend our demo classes. Anyway, that is not an issue. Just take these food coupons and have your lunch at the tiffin center, which is just adjacent to our building.

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Manoj: - Chalo yaar, accha hee hua, free mein lunch ho gaya aaj. Koi loss nahi hai. Sab kuch free mein ho gaya.

Chaitanya: - Ha ha ha, you people are very naughty boss. I also used to be like that, when I was in College. But, later, after entering the corporate world, I have changed a lot. In the corporate world, money has no time value but the time surely has a monetary value.

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Paul: - uddhar dekh, ussh table pey. Chaitanya is giving lectures to Manoj, ha ha ha…I think that Manoj badly needs a Hajmola tablet… itna lecture joh sunh raha hai Chaitanya ka. Why these corporate people give so many lectures?

Ravi: - Manoj lecture sunh raha hain, isliye woh bhi itna lecture dey raha hain. In the corporate world, people have no time to listen to anyone’s lectures. Sirf aapne aapne kaam sey matlab rakhtey hain. Arrey, Manoj aur Chaitanya ko chorh, udhaar dekh. Arindam aur Suhash already ladkiyon se baath karna suru kar diya hain.

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Arindam: - Oho, I am extremely sorry. I was not aware that you are just standing behind me. That is why, I have collided with you. Aapke salwar mein thoda sambhar girh gaya hain….thoda paani sey dho lijiye.

Sarita: - It’s ok. But, why, are you always in a hurry? Are you feeling too hungry? If you would have walked slowly and steadily, then you would have never collided with me. This is not a playground, this is a tiffin center and when you are holding a mini meals thaali on your hand, you should walk slowly. By the way, I am Sarita. What is your name?

Suhash: - jee, iska naam hain Arindam and my name is Suhash.

Rinky: - How funny! We have not asked you to respond in this regard.

Suhash: - arrey kya farak parta hain? Chaliye, ussh table mein jaa ke baith tey hain.

Sarita: - What nonsense. Yeh, aap aap kya lagaa rakha hain. We are all of almost same age.

Arindam: - Ya, ya, I really agree to that. Anyway, you people take your respective thaalis and then you can join us on that table. Please don’t mind, but I am feeling very hungry now. So, I cannot wait for you people to start eating. Please excuse me.

Rinky: - Ya, ya, excused. Uff, kya ladka hai, babah? You just go and start having your lunch. We will join you just after 5 minutes, after taking our respective thaalis from the food counter. Aab muuh kya dekh rahe ho. Now go.

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Dulal: - Excuse me, can I join you people?

Chaitanya: - of course, why not? By the way, I have seen your picture somewhere. Since morning, I have been thinking about it that, where have I seen your picture? Are you in any of my friend lists of any social networking site?

Dulal: - Ha ha ha, I met you in a conference of ‘Amway’ company 4 months ago and then I have accepted your invitation in Linkedin.com recently.

Manoj: - My goodness, people are becoming social friends nowadays, by using Internet and websites. Wow, that’s really great.