Hi I understand the issues re: getting trained ot involved in the functional area or the business aspects. Quite often people tend to stereo-type people. Though this may be correct often to get good productivity, it could be limiting the scope for an individual; this seems to have happened in your case also, if I have understood your message correctly. To address your query: 1. As you seem to be a technical person, following may may be of interest to you in addition to Netweaver, PLM: - CRM, SRM, SCM, MDM You may have to spend your own money to get the skills you want. It could help you in the long run. As in countries like Australia, you may be able to claim the self development expenses from the tax office. 2. To rectify being limited to BW technical aspects, you may try alternate ways. - Go through each aspect (or process) of the implementation. Find the business aspects - from any documentation, who use it, why, and how. This can give you a fair understanding of the business aspects. - Work with the business users when they use the parts of BW. Put yourself in a business user's shoes and try to find the purpose of each step. This can also help in understanding the inefficienies of the different steps that a business user does. - Ask your manager to involve you in the steps of business analysis, UAT, etc. All the above is to give you the business knowledge of a process. You may be able to suggest a user alternative and better ways of achieving a particular result. You can see very well the above applies to any IT implementation. Earlier as a business analyst, I have learnt the business aspects by working along with business users off and on. You would need to negotiate with your managers or the business users to get what you want - give something to get something. You may need to use your personal time to achieve what you want. Remember - never give up! Hope this helps. All the Best!!! Regards, JG

Hi I understand the issues re: getting trained ot involved in the functional area or the business aspects. Quite often people tend to stereo-type people. Though this may be correct often to get good productivity, it could be limiting the scope for an individual; this seems to have happened in your case also, if I have understood your message correctly. To address your query: 1. As you seem to be a technical person, following may may be of interest to you in addition to Netweaver, PLM: - CRM, SRM, SCM, MDM You may have to spend your own money to get the skills you want. It could help you in the long run. As in countries like Australia, you may be able to claim the self development expenses from the tax office. 2. To rectify being limited to BW technical aspects, you may try alternate ways. - Go through each aspect (or process) of the implementation. Find the business aspects - from any documentation, who use it, why, and how. This can give you a fair understanding of the business aspects. - Work with the business users when they use the parts of BW. Put yourself in a business user's shoes and try to find the purpose of each step. This can also help in understanding the inefficienies of the different steps that a business user does. - Ask your manager to involve you in the steps of business analysis, UAT, etc. All the above is to give you the business knowledge of a process. You may be able to suggest a user alternative and better ways of achieving a particular result. You can see very well the above applies to any IT implementation. Earlier as a business analyst, I have learnt the business aspects by working along with business users off and on. You would need to negotiate with your managers or the business users to get what you want - give something to get something. You may need to use your personal time to achieve what you want. Remember - never give up! Hope this helps. All the Best!!! Regards, JG