SAP Supply Chain Consultant Career Q&A with Jason
Jason, a senior SAP supply chain consultant at Clarkston Technology Solutions (CTS), dives into his career story – from these past 17 months working at Clarkston to all of the incredible experiences that have led him to where he is today.
What is your role at Clarkston?
I am one of the senior SAP supply chain consultants at Clarkston Technology Solutions. I also lead the Functional training bootcamp for CTS and help mentor junior consultants as they grow in the careers.
Tell us about a new skill you developed recently.
Over my time here at Clarkston I have enhanced my skills in interfacing and mentoring junior consultants regarding client interaction and helping them connect the dots between cross functionality of SAP modules.
If you had to choose, which of Clarkston’s core values do you feel resonates with you the most?
Teamwork is one of the most important values anyone can bring to a project. I try to excel at utilizing and supporting all aspects of teamwork. This allows for everyone on a project to give good client interaction, meet the necessary deadlines, and allow stewards to take needed time off.
How has your work changed post-Covid?
Post-Covid I have found my work ethic has change dramatically. I am not traveling near as much as I was, and therefore am able to provide better client availability across multiple projects. I can create a functioning work/life balance as well because I am no longer having to work onsite with a client and then working extra hours at a hotel for other projects.
Which internal initiatives, communities, or projects are you involved in at Clarkston?
I assist the recruiting teams as one of the technical interviewers for MM/PP/SD/IM/WM/PM, I run cross functional training for experienced stewards in cross functional areas of SAP, I facilitate the Functional Bootcamp for junior stewards, I am an active member of the SAP community.
What advice would you give to someone starting at Clarkston?
When starting at Clarkston the work can be seen as slow at first and then as you start working with more and more teams, then you will start to see yourself getting utilized more. I would advise be patient and the work and teamwork that will come will provide vast experience that is rarely seen elsewhere.
In your experience, what qualities make someone a good consultant?
A good consultant has 2 defining traits:
- We are there first and foremost as business process SME’s. Customer’s utilizing systems such as SAP like to customize the look and feel to meet a lot of time the way their old systems looked. Helping them combine their business process with the new functionality without significant customization is the value a consultant brings to the table.
- The second trait is we are a Change Influencer in an organization. We should strive to help our clients utilized the new system without breaking their current business process.
Tell us about your prior experience and career journey that led you to Clarkston.
I started in the US Navy at the young age of 18 and volunteered for a new command that they were starting back up that dated back to the Vietnam War, Riverine Squadron. This was a small river boat patrol unit that leveraged many different small unit methodologies and tactics. Teamwork was a vital piece of this training, and everyone had to be trained in multiple job duties due its direct line to combat. For the next 6 years I trained all over the US and severed in 2 combat deployments to Iraq and other middle east nations totaling over 300+ combat missions.
After I left the military, I started my college education in Criminal Justice and Business Administration but continued to work at several jobs concurrently. Several of those jobs were welding, security, bartending, logistics, and when I finally completed my bachelor’s degree I started at a small oil and gas company that had just implemented SAP. I acted as one of their junior analysts and helped to complete the implementation and stabilize the system. I worked there for several years enhancing their business processes and merging it with SAP, training their production, purchasing, and maintenance staffs in how to use the system. After hurricane Harvey, I started working as an independent SAP consultant and went out to various projects throughout the US helping in a range of different modules. I finally landed at Clarkston Technology Solutions after many years of working multiple projects at the same time as one of their senior AMS consultants.