Pebbletree Consulting has announced that it will continue to be committed to help develop SAP skills in South Africa through its SAP learnership programme, specifically within historically disadvantaged communities. This will be done through Tlhakano Technology Solutions, the SAP learnership company it helped create.
According to Pebbletree consulting director Bani Kgosana, the word `learnership` has slowly found its way into the South African lexicon. "This is thanks to the efforts of the various Sector Education Training Authorities (SETAs) that were set up to give effect to the government policy of tackling the unemployment and skills shortage problems that continue to plague the South African economy."
Learnerships are programmes that businesses can implement to develop unemployed people from a broad range of industries, develop internal staff or to train unemployed graduates. This is done by providing learners with a combination of theoretical training and on-the-job training under the guidance of mentors, using the outcomes-based training framework, provided by the SETA.
Kgosana says since the inception of the learnership programme, 16 learners have successfully been trained as SAP consultants. "The first group of 10 learners who completed their NQF level 5 ERP learnership are now all qualified SAP R/3 consultants and permanently employed by Pebbletree Consulting. Their functional areas of expertise range from finance (FI), materials management (MM), technical architecture (BASIS) and human resources (HR)."
The second group of learners have also completed the NQF level 5 learnership programme and are about to commence the final stage of their training. This will include an intensive five-week SAP Academy in their chosen area of specialisation. At the end of the training, they will be required to write an international SAP certification examination in order to qualify as SAP consultants. They, like the first group of learners, will obtain a SAP qualification in addition to the NQF qualification.
The implementation of the first two learnership programmes has enabled Pebbletree Consulting to refine its process of developing high-level SAP consultants. Not only does the programme make them confident in implementing the technical aspects of a SAP system, but it gives them all the requisite skills that a consultant must have in order to effectively provide the high level of service Pebbletree`s clients have come to expect.
"Learnerships are, however, not easy programmes to implement, they are much easier to begin and much more difficult to successfully complete. This is true for both parties, the organisations that begin them and the learners that agree to join the programmes," concludes Kgosana.
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Pebbletree Consulting is Dimension Data`s SAP application specialist that focuses on strategic business consulting, developing business models in support of current and future corporate business strategy. Pebbletree`s solution approach is underpinned by the deployment and optimisation of SAP software solutions. The company`s core competency lies in the understanding of the extended supply chain, and its extensive experience and exposure to the business intelligence environment.
Pebbletree Consulting is established in South Africa as an SAP service partner and SAP business partner.
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