On a Digital Journey in the SAP IBP World

Fabian Stocker, 36, dove into the consulting world at valantic in September 2011. In his role as Vice President Integrated Business Planning, this Augsburg native explains his own learning curve at valantic, the complexity of SAP projects, and why he especially likes the “development potential” at valantic.

How was your start at valantic?

After I had worked in industry for four years and had worked with many consultants, I dared to take the leap into the consulting world myself at valantic. When I started, I received very good professional and personal coaching from my then-mentor, so that I was soon able to start working on projects. I dove quickly into the consulting world, so my learning curve was correspondingly steep. At valantic, I learned early on that the consulting world is complex and that the requirements are enormous. However, for me, my early days at valantic were absolutely exciting.

What do you especially like about valantic?

I especially like the development potential and valantic’s innovative character. We are developing rapidly as a company. We are constantly expanding our service portfolio, we work with the latest technologies, and we keep our eyes out for new business fields. And of course development affects us employees. We can realize ourselves in our projects and actively incorporate ideas; I think that’s great.

What are the challenges of your job?

In my role as Vice President IBP – IBP stands for Integrated Business Planning in the context of supply chain management, that is to say: Supply Chain Management of companies using SAP software solutions – there are various challenges, which I like to confront. Our SAP projects are getting increasingly complex, and customers’ requirements are more complex as well. The complexity of the projects has to be recognized in order to implement them optimally. Since we want to assist our customers as best we can on their digital journey, it can certainly be challenging to convince them to use new technologies such as the cloud. But this is also part of consultants’ everyday work, convincing customer to move toward digitalization.

What do you do as Vice President IBP?

In my role as Vice President IBP, I direct and coordinate the SAP IBP team. In addition to managing employees, of course I also incorporate myself actively into the project business and support my team as project manager. In my role, I am the direct contact for customers and their concerns. Together, we advise customers as to how they can improve their future planning organization. We analyze the previous planning processes and try to optimize these. Here the focus is on comprehensive, transparent planning along the entire value-creation chain. We regards SAP Integrated Business Planning as the ideal platform for our customers for assisting them with the digitalization of their business processes.

Furthermore, we are currently seeking new project managers, consultants, and junior consultants in the SAP IBP sector at numerous locations in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. It’s worthwhile to take a look at our career page.