Certification, What is it good for?

SAP provides an overview of the Major Partner certifications on their website. There is one very big take away that should be gathered from this list. NTT DATA Business Solutions is one of the few System Integrators (SI) that maintains global certifications in all major categories identified by SAP. So, I want to ask…is this important?

I was recently working with Steve Short, SVP Managed Services on a response to a prospects list of questions. When I asked Steve for his thoughts on why are certifications important, this was Steve’s bullet point response:

Bottom line, Certifications show commitment
- Commitment to staying abreast of the evolving SAP technology
- Commitment to QUALITY of delivery and innovation in all we do
- Commitment to the SAP Marketplace and our customers that we will focus on the SAP solution set that are relevant to them and expose them to the right capabilities that can help their enterprise
- Commitment to Supporting the Complete Life Cycle of SAP

In my mind, obtaining certifications from SAP should be a basic checkbox to working with a SAP SI. Why would you trust your enterprise environment to a company who does not spend the time to go through the process to show that they are committed to SAP as a focus of their business?