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Great feedback, Chuck.
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Any advice on reneging an offer?
PTO doesn't come soon enough #tootired
Bowl Leader
Great feedback, Chuck.
Pro
Any advice on reneging an offer?
PTO doesn't come soon enough #tootired
I did an SAP R/3 implementation project in 1997. SAP wasn’t my thing, but PwC (where I was at the time) had a huge practice. I opted out of becoming an “SAP guy” after that project for multiple reasons, but one of them was the general perception that most F500 had already implemented SAP and the market was reaching saturation, so SAP implementation work was probably on the decline.
I think it’s safe to say that declaring SAP dead in 1997 was premature. Like it or not, F500 companies, because they move slowly and carefully, tend to not use bleeding edge tech solutions. Some of that has changed due to the widespread adoption of SaaS which puts the pace of change partially back into the SaaS vendor’s hands, although they have to deal with the same challenge if not making radical changes faster than their customers can handle. Overall though, this means that a leading tech solution, even if considered “old”, tends to have a very long and (for consultants) very profitable lifespan.
To be honest, it just depends on what you like to do. From a tech standpoint, the foundational concepts of enterprise tech just don’t change that often, regardless of how shiny the next Big Thing is. I’ve been in tech for almost 10 years now and the issues my clients are facing now are only marginally different than they were 10 years ago. People are still concerned about security, cost, scalability, ability to answer business needs, and headcount... it’s just the context surrounding these issues that has shifted.
Also, in my experience, few F500 companies want to risk being “the first” to adopt something new. No one wins awards for being the first to embrace a cloud platform. They all want to make sure it’s safe, secure, has broken a couple of times and been demonstrably handled competently by the vendor, and worth the shift.
In my experience, as tech consultants, we get good at solving the “shape” of our clients’ issues... the tech we use to solve those issues changes, but the concepts and thought process are portable.
I like to think of it as the difference between jet skis and cargo ships. The vast majority of F500 are cargo ships in that they can’t turn as quickly, have a greater fallout if something goes wrong, and may not be as sexy as jet skis. But they still need to dock, and I enjoy helping them do so because the scale of it is so much more impressive than a jetski.
If the clients are always behind, you will always have work (implementing the new version)
I guess you could argue the largest companies are big enough to have and survive off their own languages and systems... if you learn to use a relatively outdated tool that is used at even a handful of companies, that is inherently good enough for you to make a living / do well just in that ecosystem. even if it's not truly cutting edge
Is your goal to stay in consulting or move to industry, or software? If staying, what’s the total consulting wallet for F500 on “old” tech? How does it compare to the wallet for “cutting edge” tech by <F500 companies? What kinds of companies are winning that business (in either case)?
If you are looking to learn something that can be monetized, those are the type of questions I would be asking.
Is the lower risk only a perception thing? Bigger firms by definition have more human and capital resources to back large scale implementations / integrations, and will only build out those capabilities where there is tangible scale demand.
Put a different way, if you’re the CFO of a F500 company, do you think your business (and job) are at greater risk putting your core finance processes into SAP or into some 50-person ERP startup on Series B funding?
The cost for legacy may feel artificial to you, but the transference of risk to partners and vendors is 100% real to clients that actually make the buying decisions.