SAP is moving fast towards Enterprise SOA, and its products are being groomed so as to be SOA-enabled. In simple words, web services will be the backbone of NetWeaver platform going forward. SAP PI (XI) will serve as SOA Middleware. Another product namely Master Data Management (MDM) will serve as a tool to consolidate and streamline master data across systems. According to Ray Kelly, vice president – B2B Solution Center, PI and MDM are here to stay and will be mandatory for all of SAP’s current and future new product introductions.

Career expert Jon Reed advises on choosing BI, PI and Portals as the career path. He feels that BI has the most customer acceptance and hence the most demand at present. Also, the usage of PI will eventually surpass that of Portals. He also adds that the most sought after SAP Professionals will be the ones who are able to easily move between Java and SAP (ABAP) environments.

MDM allows you to clean up master data throughout your SAP systems. It plays very nicely with BW/BI, which is perhaps the hottest area in SAP right now. There are proven case studies from SAP customers who have saved money using MDM. MDM market is expected to grow gradually.

Both PI and MDM bring you closer to Enterprise SOA. Being flexible and multi-skilled seems to be the key now to forge ahead.