By Claude J. Bauer
High Tech Careers Editor
Special Advertising Recruitment Supplement to The Washington Post
Sunday, April 26, 1998

To help satisfy a growing global demand for workers with training and experience in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, The Baan Co. will open a Baan Institute next month at its U.S. headquarters in Reston, Va. According to Christine Pittman, the company's vice president for global education, Baan hopes to turn out as many as 500 certified professionals this year from its four institutes worldwide.

Those graduates will join 10,000 other Baan specialists already working in 210 companies around the world. What's more, they will enjoy a significant demand for their services, as well as some of the best paying jobs in the industry. According to Bob Williams, director of the Baan practice for the Fairfax, Va.-based consultancy Noblestar Systems, companies can bill out a Baan professional for $1,600 per day, and the workers themselves can earn up to $130,000 annually.

There is one aspect of this lucrative career path that isn't a fit for everyone: once graduates have shown they are effective consultants and can implement the complex Baan IV software, they can expect heavy travel and extended stays away from home. "It's typically a traveling profession," Williams said. "Many firms that go after Baan have foreign and off- shore sites," he said. Baan implementation projects can last from four months to two years, and Baan consultants typically work on-site for the duration of the project.

If you enjoy that kind of lifestyle, you're in the right place. Thanks to three major airports and its location between Europe and the rest of the U.S., "Washington is a very good hub for this profession," Williams said.

Paul Gelter, a partner with Andersen Consulting and leader of that company's Baan practice, agrees that Baan consulting requires heavy travel. However, his company is attempting to alleviate the burden somewhat by establishing Baan "solution centers" in Europe and the U.S. Gelter's practice, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, now includes 150 Baan specialists that work on projects worldwide.

Era of ERP

While Oracle, PeopleSoft, and SAP AG's R/3 have garnered the most attention in the U.S., Baan is beginning to pick up steam in the marketplace. Baan was a little slower than other ERP packages to gain a foothold here because the Dutch owners of the firm focused primarily on the European market. Then, Baan landed a major contract with Boeing, and its product has been gaining ground in the U.S. ever since. What's more, the company is experiencing tremendous growth; its revenues grew by 65 percent in 1997 alone. While Baan has always targeted large firms, Gelter observes that over the last few years, the company has pursued the largest companies. "Baan has been moving toward billion dollar companies," he said.

Baan focuses on "key vertical markets" in project- oriented manufacturing, said Ed Black, an analyst for the Boston, Mass.-based market research firm the Aberdeen Group. These markets include aerospace, automotive, and electronics, as well as heavy equipment manufacturers and process industries, such as pulp and paper plants. "They're not trying to be everything to everyone," like the other ERP vendors, he said. Nevertheless, Baan recently acquired a major interest in the European-based human resources (HR) software provider Meta4, and plans to make that company's product part of Baan's offerings. In addition, Baan acquired Aurum Software, a company that specializes in customer management software. "They have the back office ERP [with Baan IV] and now the front office with Aurum," said Black. He believes these additions will increase Baan's ability to provide value in areas that are integrated with manufacturing.

Boundary Spanners

According to Pittman, "boundary spanners" are one of the most successful groups to emerge from Baan training. These are typically "bright young people" with business, technology or finance backgrounds, Pittman said. "We want people with good communications skills who can write well and make presentations," she said. The first boundary spanner class graduated three years ago, and Pittman remarks that they have emerged as, "absolutely some of the best consultants and sales people in the company."

Baan is also developing relationships with 22 universities worldwide, some of which will offer training on their products as part of the curriculum, and some of which will serve as a resource for more boundary spanners. In the Washington area, "We have started a fairly aggressive relationship with The George Washington University," for recruiting boundary spanners, Pittman noted. "The university community is a prime source of talent," she said.

The Ideal Candidate

When considering candidates, Williams looks for several key attributes: functional industry knowledge, hands-on software skills, and consulting experience. What's more, "they have to be nice people," Williams said. Why is congeniality important? Williams says he has seen Baan implementation teams with as many as 58 workers, 23 of whom are consultants, a situation that places a high value on the ability to work with others, he noted.

"The most successful candidate will have significant experience," Williams added. Candidates for Baan work at Noblestar Systems, which has practices for the other ERP packages as well, typically have 12 to 15 years relevant work experience. The company invests about $25,000 in training for each. Also, those looking to become ERP consultants should be aware that it's not enough to just do their job every day. Noblestar expects them to "create a revenue stream" by bringing in new business as well, Williams noted.

According to Pittman, successful Baan specialists usually have strong financial or industry experience. They also could have experience with one of the other ERP packages, since many of the skills used for ERP implementation are transferable, she said.

Williams uses Baan workers with backgrounds in finance, manufacturing, information technology, distribution, or customer service. "You need people from every one of those disciplines," on a Baan implementation project, he said.

Gelter adds that even within the Baan knowledge area, certain skills can increase a worker's marketability. "Baan IV skills [the current version] are at a premium," he said. Also, when Baan releases its Baan Series this year, the first workers to gain experience with that software will be in high demand.

"Hands-on experience is the most valuable," Gelter said. "The people who are most effective are those who have implemented any ERP package or Baan in the past." He also counsels that Baan specialists can boost their earning potential by learning Baan's Dynamic Enterprise Modeling (DEM), a BPR tool developed by Baan. In addition, Gelter recommends that Baan end users acquire consulting and implementation skills before attempting to market themselves as Baan specialists. "Knowing Baan as a user doesn't make you a good project person," he said.