Tune in to our newest ASUG Talks podcast episode for a Candid Career Conversation with Staci Baker. In a short 15 minutes, Staci breezes through her career experiences, educational pursuits, and what she's learned, and continues to learn about SAP tech solutions.
ASUG Talks: Candid Career Conversations Podcast with Staci Baker
Episode 11
Jim Lichtenwalter
I'm joined today by Staci Baker. Staci, thank you so much for joining me.
Staci Baker:
Hi, thanks for having me.
Lichtenwalter:
Really excited to talk with you. Why don't you explain a little bit about your role right now and what you do every day?
Baker:
I'm currently a director in our SAP practice here at PWC. I've been with PWC a little over eight years and started out as a senior associate in the SAP practice, and I've worked my way up to director over the years. I have a little bit of a specialty in finance, cash treasury, and some of those areas.
Lichtenwalter:
I'm always interested in education. Can you tell us about not only your undergrad, but also your doctoral program? Why did you go about choosing both of those routes and how has it prepared you for what you're currently doing right now?
Baker:
Way back in the day, when I was an undergrad, I went to the University of South Florida. I started out as a management of information systems major, which at the time was part of the College of Sciences. And I had to take a lot of physics and stuff that really wasn't up my alley. So I very quickly switched over to the College of Business, which is where I found my home and I was quite happy. I ended up with a major in business administration and a minor in economics. I went directly into my MBA program also at USF. And I got my MBA there and I specialized in international business and finance.
Then I really focused on building my career. In April 2018, I started my doctoral program for a DBA, doctor of business administration at St. Leo University. I ended up at St. Leo for two main reasons. This was 2018, and I traveled full time, or at least I did back then for my job. So I needed an online program.
The other thing that really drew me to this program was they had a track for teaching if you really wanted to be a professor one day, but they had another track for consulting. And I had already been a consultant for a number of years. So that really intrigued me that I could continue my education and get a doctorate without having to necessarily go the teaching route. I'm almost done. I am in the dissertation phase of the program. I'm actually doing my research currently. And my dissertation topic is around the under representation of women in top leadership and tech consulting. So it's all still wrapped into my SAP and my professional life. I'm excited to finish my research and finish my dissertation.
Lichtenwalter:
It sounds like such a relevant topic for the IT industry. How much longer is left in your process?
Baker:
I'm in the research phase right now. My survey is out. If anyone can find me on LinkedIn, you could get to my survey from there and a few other places. Once I've collected on my research, then I run all of my statistics and write up my conclusions. Then I have to consult with a professional statistician and a professional editor, and then I get to defend my dissertation. I'm hoping to graduate in May.
Lichtenwalter:
Congratulations.
It's a really interesting tethering of your professional life with your academic life. Can you talk a little bit about that link?
Baker:
My two independent variables are perceived organizational support and inclusive leadership. And I'm studying if they have any impact or relationship with turnover intention. I'm using gender as a moderator. So I'm trying to kind of investigate if perceived organizational support has any impact on whether people want to leave this industry, whether inclusive leadership has any impact if people want to leave this industry, and then also if someone's gender makes a difference in those possible relationships, if any exists at all.
It's just really important to retain good people, to keep and retain some women to some of the top ranks when they are very underrepresented in this particular industry. So, trying to understand, if any of these things make a difference or does it just come down to who's paying better and all of the other factors that would contribute someone to either stay or not stay. We talk a lot about being inclusive and the companies being more supportive and allowing us to make mistakes and having that freedom to be human and they will still support you. And of course we all want those things, but I wonder, does it really make a difference on whether people stay or go?
Lichtenwalter:
You told us a little bit about your undergrad degree and your MBA and what you focused on there, how did that lead into IT?
Baker:
It was a job that led into it. So I had a few jobs on the business side for a while and eventually I was a senior AR and AP analyst for Coca-Cola Enterprises. This was back in 2003, 2004 timeframe. And back then they were on an AS400 system, very green cursor, square blink screen, and all of that. And in addition to being on these different AS400 systems, each business area was on a different system and the systems were not integrated and they barely spoke to one another.
So they decided that they wanted to implement SAP. And my boss at the time came to me and said that he kind of recognized that I had a high systems aptitude and was I interested in joining the team to learn about this system and then travel around and implement it at all of their customer financial service centers? And I was excited for the opportunity. They started flying me to Atlanta every week. I'm actually based out of Florida. And they flew in SAP to Atlanta as well, and I learned directly from SAP. And then spent the next few years traveling to their financial service centers, implementing SAP FICO.
Lichtenwalter:
When this opportunity came up, was this the first time that you had encountered SAP or even heard about SAP?
Baker:
It was my absolute first time. Learning a new software can be daunting, but like I said, I always had a little bit of an aptitude for systems, so I found that piece exciting. And then what I really fell in love with was just the complete integration pieces of SAP. All of the different modules integrate and talk to one another and things that happen in other modules end up in finance where it's supposed to be in the end.
That's what really excited me about the whole project more than just learning a new software in general. It was the way that SAP was so integrated. This was in 2004, that was a rarity and it was exciting. Nowadays there's lots of ERP systems out there I think that have good integration. But back then, I hadn't seen it. And yeah, I never looked back. I've been in SAP ever since.
Lichtenwalter:
Staci, how did you get acclimated to the SAP ecosystem? What did you rely on?
Baker:
In my Coca-Cola days, I relied on SAP and their consultants. Once you're a little bit fluent in SAP in general, then you can start to expand into other modules and other functions. But I think back then, I wouldn't have been able to get acclimated without them.
After I left Coca-Cola, I went to another organization and was implementing SAP for them. And that was an amazing company, an amazing job and I certainly learned a lot.
So I think when I got into the job, that I'm in now and that I've been in for the last eight years, that's when my learning and my knowledge really took off, only because you get to see so many different companies with so many different requirements.
And then you can really see what SAP can do, because you're not just seeing one way of doing it. You have to find multiple ways of doing it for different companies with different requirements and different things that they want to see in the outcomes.
Lichtenwalter:
I want to talk a little bit now about some particular experiences. What is a particularly challenging SAP project you worked on? Can you talk to us a little bit about why it was challenging and how your team overcame any hurdles?
Baker:
Sure. We had a client who really just wanted to customize everything to within an inch of its life. We had a joke that the name of the project was Z-SAP instead of SAP. If you're familiar, anything custom and SAP always starts with a Z, so that was challenging one, because that's just not best practice, right? Anytime you go for upgrades, anytime you go for support packs, anything of that, all of your customizations have to be retested. If you ever really want to go into a public cloud scenario, you really got to look at all your customizations and you want to keep them to a minimum.
The other piece was this client really budgeted their time and project on implementing a little bit closer to standard and then when it wasn't, they didn't realize why it was taking so long, why it was turning out to be so much more expensive.
I think the biggest piece to really get to the heart of the requirement and figure out if there's a better way that it can be done standard. Of course that's not going to happen in every case, but I think some clients probably don't need a whole custom process to get them the information that they're looking for. So, yeah. But that was a challenge for sure.
Lichtenwalter:
IT is obviously a field that's always changing and shifting. Looking at the next three to five years, what excites you the most about the IT industry?
Baker:
I think a few things. One is that probably because of COVID, but I think a lot of options and just being able to see how technology enables so many different working landscapes, a lot more flexibility. A lot more being able to really do intricate SAP design sessions or whatever you want to do in utilizing so many different technologies that you don't have to be all in the same room with a whiteboard. We have digital whiteboards. We have all kinds of tools and technology now that can facilitate just changing the way that projects run in general. And I think that's pretty exciting.
A few years ago, there were a few people that I really wanted to refer to my organization, but they weren't willing to commit to full-time travel for multitude of reasons. Lots of reasons why people don't want to sign on for that. And I think that things are changing, that is not a requirement to be able to be in this job or to be in an IT job at all. Even if you're local, you don't even have to go into an office. So I think that's exciting.
I think another exciting thing is that people are really trying to focus on using technology for good, even SAP. SAP is really making an investment in the ESG space, and that can have a long-term impact for everyone, for the globe. When you start to talk about some of these amazing technologies that are going to save the planet and help employees have a better work life and all kinds of things that really make a difference and really matter, I think that's exciting.
Lichtenwalter:
I think that's incredibly important for companies to be looking at as we enter into this new age where we're focused on sustainability. I'm actually writing an article about SAP sustainability.
Baker:
Even our company has already used SAP to help bring some of that in. We use Concur, which of course is an SAP product for all of our travel bookings. And now when you go in to book your flights, it actually shows your CO2 impact and your emissions impact for the flights you're choosing and the different routes and things to help you make more sustainable choices. So little things like that, I just think are so cool that you never would've seen years ago.
Lichtenwalter:
Great. Well, Staci, thank you so much for joining me today. It was a real pleasure talking with you and good luck over the next year completing your research and your thesis.
Baker:
Thank you so much.