Ayo and Louis - Orchard House placement
Undergraduate third year Finance, Accounting & Management students Ayodele Fagbohunka and Louis Foulger recently completed a placement with UK SAP Business ByDesign partner Orchard House Solutions.
The placement was part of the University of Nottingham Digital Transformation Programme’s ongoing partnership with SAP, designed to improve students’ digital professional skills and enhance their career prospects.
“During the placement I was given lots of responsibility and plenty of opportunities for learning and to enhance my SAP skills,” said Louis, who worked as a trainee SAP Business ByDesign consultant during the placement. “All the way through I could see the positive impact I was having on the customer. This made the experience very rewarding and enjoyable.”
“I had a wonderful experience,” added Ayo. “I was able to develop my ability to independently find solutions to complex problems despite not always having adequate training. This taught me how to independently find solutions even in a high pressure working environment.”
Louis Foulger
With 77% of all business transactions worldwide touching an SAP software system, there is strong demand for SAP skills in the marketplace, and the University’s Digital Centre of Excellence was established to give students an advantage in the ever-competitive graduate job market.
Through the placement, Ayo and Louis were able to gain valuable experience working with an SAP partner in a client-facing role, undertaking tasks on the SAP Business ByDesign system, such as cleaning and migrating data into the system, creating approval rules for customers, solving errors by looking through historical accounting data, shadowing meetings and helping clients.
“I was able to develop lots of personal and professional skills which will benefit me in any career in the future. Working directly with clients improved my communication and problem solving skills and creating data dashboards for company executives expanded my time-management and analytical abilities,” said Louis. “Working with clients across a range of industries helped me to see first-hand how concepts and theories which I have learnt about in my studies fit in to business’s day-to-day operations.”
“The placement was an extremely valuable insight into the world of SAP Business ByDesign consulting,” added Ayo.
“It has given me the opportunity to enter a consultancy career, and I have gained lots of useful experience which I can put on my CV, LinkedIn and talk about in interviews. As well as this, I was learning on the job, which is a skill I will definitely be taking with me as I complete my SAP Business ByDesign professional certification at the Centre of Digital Excellence, and in the final year of my studies. Overall, it has definitely been a positive experience.”
Ayodele Fagbohunka
My placement has given me a year of experience which is vital to put me ahead of other candidates in such a competitive job market.
Find out more about the Digital Professional Skills courses available at the university.
