Orga­ni­za­tions using SAP often note dif­fi­cul­ties in find­ing tal­ent with prac­ti­cal expe­ri­ence in SAP tech­nol­o­gy. As inter­nal SAP stake­hold­ers retire or move to oth­er com­pa­nies, with them departs insti­tu­tion­al knowledge. 

Aware­ness of this grow­ing skills gap is appar­ent in the ASUG mem­ber com­mu­ni­ty. 2026 ASUG Pulse of the SAP Cus­tomer Research found that 36% of mem­ber orga­ni­za­tions indi­cat­ed that main­tain­ing the inter­nal skills need­ed to man­age new tech­nol­o­gy is a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge. Anoth­er 22% said they’re strug­gling to main­tain knowl­edge­able staff amid turnover. Even so, as more com­pa­nies move their lega­cy soft­ware land­scapes to SAP S/4HANA, 59% indi­cate that S/4 exper­tise is the most impor­tant skill for their organization’s success. 

“SAP has a retire­ment cliff,” said Vishal Shah, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Infor­ma­tion Sys­tems and Direc­tor of SAP Uni­ver­si­ty Alliance Pro­gram at Cen­tral Michi­gan Uni­ver­si­ty, who teach­es SAP cours­es at the school. But cre­at­ing a strong pipeline of tal­ent com­ing out of col­lege — who are knowl­edge­able about SAP before they even start job hunt­ing — cuts down on the train­ing need­ed to bring new hires up to speed. 

ASUG and its Cam­pus Con­nect pro­gram can serve as one vehi­cle for estab­lish­ing this pipeline and find­ing qual­i­fied tal­ent for your orga­ni­za­tion, Shah said. In fact, Shah has seen 24 for­mer Cen­tral Michi­gan Uni­ver­si­ty SAP stu­dents land the start of their career at Eli Lilly.

At ASUG Tech Con­nect in Octo­ber 2025, Shah — along with one of his for­mer stu­dents, Son­ali Sin­ha of Eli Lil­ly, and fel­low pro­fes­sor Murat Adi­var, Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor at Fayet­teville State Uni­ver­si­ty — par­tic­i­pat­ed in a pan­el dis­cus­sion about ASUG Cam­pus Con­nect, dur­ing which they dis­cussed how ASUG Cam­pus Con­nect can act as a bridge between com­pa­nies in need of SAP next-gen tal­ent, uni­ver­si­ties teach­ing the skills those com­pa­nies seek, and stu­dents ready to start their SAP careers. 

Con­nect­ing Tal­ent, Schools, and SAP

Since 1997, Shah has also been on the SAP aca­d­e­m­ic board for SAP Uni­ver­si­ty Alliances, a pro­gram that offers edu­ca­tion resources to stu­dents prepar­ing for careers in SAP. Exam­in­ing the increas­ing short­age of SAP tal­ent, Shah has been focused on solu­tions for improv­ing the tal­ent pipeline, while also deliv­er­ing SAP edu­ca­tion along­side fel­low pro­fes­sors across U.S. schools. 

After attend­ing ASUG chap­ter meet­ings in Michi­gan over the past few years, Shah com­mit­ted to work­ing with ASUG on its Cam­pus Con­nect pro­gram in Michi­gan. ASUG Cam­pus Con­nect has also extend­ed its pres­ence to ASUG Car­oli­nas and Wis­con­sin chapters.

At ASUG chap­ter meet­ings, mem­bers fre­quent­ly dis­cuss BTP devel­op­ment, cloud com­put­ing, and how SAP approach­es chang­ing dynam­ics in the work­place, all top­ics which Shah then brings back to his class­room. He teach­es fun­da­men­tal skills such as busi­ness process con­fig­u­ra­tion, along with the lat­est BTP or RISE frame­works. Stu­dents learn SAP tech­nol­o­gy and ter­mi­nol­o­gy, so they’re bet­ter pre­pared for real-world appli­ca­tion of SAP skills in the workplace. 

“The things we teach them are very rel­e­vant to their jobs, and — more impor­tant­ly — give them the skills crit­i­cal to nav­i­gat­ing the chang­ing dynam­ics you might find in an orga­ni­za­tion every day,” Shah said. ​“They have the meta-cog­ni­tive skills and the prac­ti­cal skills.” 

Stu­dents in Action 

Son­ali Sin­ha, Man­ag­er of Tech@Lilly at Eli Lil­ly and Com­pa­ny, worked with SAP in India for about five years before join­ing CMU in a master’s pro­gram spe­cial­iz­ing in SAP. She took Shah’s course on SAP foun­da­tions before being offered a grad­u­ate assis­tant role, help­ing a finance pro­fes­sor to field research and teach under­grad­u­ates SAP basics. 

While study­ing at CMU, Sin­ha was part of an SAP stu­dent user group that orga­nized week­ly events for com­pa­nies to share their projects and high­light their open roles or intern­ships. Eli Lil­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tives came to one of these events, where Sin­ha made con­nec­tions that land­ed her the role she’s in today. 

Sin­ha not­ed also that uni­ver­si­ties and ASUG Cam­pus Con­nect often orga­nize SAP-relat­ed events, includ­ing ERP sim­u­la­tion com­pe­ti­tions. These com­pe­ti­tions demon­strate how enter­prise solu­tions enable busi­ness strat­e­gy via hands-on, immer­sive sim­u­la­tions that allow both under­grad and grad­u­ate stu­dents to make strate­gic deci­sions around pro­cure­ment, man­u­fac­tur­ing, finan­cial man­age­ment, and more. Whichev­er team ends the com­pe­ti­tion with the high­est cor­po­rate val­u­a­tion wins scholarships.

Eli Lil­ly spon­sors some ERP­sim events at CMU and observes stu­dents’ SAP acu­men, their abil­i­ty to work as a team, and prob­lem-solv­ing skills in prac­ti­cal appli­ca­tion. Stu­dents attend­ing these com­pe­ti­tions, ASUG events, and SAP con­fer­ences are more like­ly to get noticed — and hired — due to their inter­est in SAP tech­nol­o­gy. ​“Every­thing is like a brown­ie point for us,” Sin­ha said. 

Dur­ing the ASUG Tech Con­nect con­fer­ence, Cam­pus Con­nect also had an event where Sin­ha inter­act­ed with stu­dents and shared insights on how to get into roles relat­ed to SAP, includ­ing how to apply for roles with Eli Lilly. 

“Get­ting an SAP pro­fes­sion­al [hired] is a big deal for any com­pa­ny because it’s such a niche field,” Sin­ha said. ASUG Cam­pus Con­nect is a vehi­cle to help stu­dents make con­nec­tions with orga­ni­za­tions seek­ing SAP tal­ent, and help the com­pa­nies find top-tier incom­ing talent.

CMU’s Shah added that ASUG Cam­pus Con­nect pro­vides a com­mu­ni­ty for stu­dents to reach out to for career ques­tions and advice, and that he often brings stu­dents to ASUG chap­ter meet­ings for edu­ca­tion and net­work­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. ​“It’s a great place to meet oth­er peo­ple who are inter­est­ed in build­ing a long career and not just sell­ing soft­ware,” he said. 

While stu­dents often say they want a job, the pro­fes­sion­als at these events make it clear that SAP skills-build­ing can open up new career pos­si­bil­i­ties, Shah said: ​“When stu­dents see peo­ple doing this for 10 years or 20 years, they are impressed by the longevi­ty of this space.” 

Join us for the first vir­tu­al ASUG Cam­pus Con­nect Com­mu­ni­ty Con­ver­sa­tion: Build­ing the Future SAP Tal­ent Pipeline Togeth­er, from 12 – 1 p.m. CT on April 8. Reg­is­ter here.