DSU-SAP Holds 1st Training Sessions for HBCUs on Campus

Delaware State University recently opened up a new world for the faculty and students of a group of Historically Black Colleges and Universities through an eight-day Project Propel workshop in which they learned about the globally used SAP enterprise applications.

In a unique collaboration initiative, the first Project Propel training session for HBCUs was conducted by DSU and SAP, with 41 faculty members attending from Bennett College, Fayetteville State University, Florida A&M University, North Carolina A&T State University, North Carolina Central University, Southern University and A&M College, Tuskegee University and Virginia State University.

The participants learned about the SAP ecosystem skill sets that their students will need to be competitive in a global job market in which many companies are utilizing SAP systems. SAP is a top market leader in enterprise resource planning; more than 300,000 companies in 190,000 countries use SAP enterprise application software systems – including 87% of the Forbes 2000 companies.

The ultimate Project Propel goals are to enable HBCUs to empower their students with the knowledge of the latest SAP technologies and to prepare them with the critical skills that are in demand among companies in the SAP ecosystem.

“With such demand for skill sets in the areas of Big Data/Analytics, next-Generation ERP and Design Thinking, there is the opportunity for 100% career placement at elevated income levels for these students,” said Brian K. Reaves, senior vice president and head of Diversity and Inclusion for the Office of the CEO at SAP.

The attending institutions also learned about DSU’s establishment of STOMPP (Skills, Talent, Opportunity, and Movement Through Project Propel), a campus organization that exposes students to the career opportunities and the skill sets that are in demand in connection with SAP technologies.  

All of the visiting faculty members came with the same primary motivation – to better prepare students to compete in the global job market.

 “We recognized early on that all the Fortune 500 companies run on SAP,” said Dr. Benedict Uzochukwu, associate professor of technology at Virginia State University. “If you are graduating students without the skills that are in demand now, what is the point?”

The participants received training from June 1-8 on SAP enterprise resource planning systems, as well as related concepts in big data/predictive analytics, S4/HANA design thinking/innovation, and how to integrate such areas into their schools’ curriculum.

Dr. Carlos Thomas, associate professor of management and marketing at Southern University in Louisiana, said exposing students to SAP technologies is a way of cultivating the greatness in them. “We want our kids to be competitive,” Dr. Thomas said. “They are asking for the opportunity to compete and demonstrate the genius that is in them. It is all about developing their skill sets into a marketable resource.”

Dr. Angela Miles, who teaches organizational behavior at North Carolina Central University (NCCU), said everyone exposed to SAP technologies is better at what they do. “We want to make our students more viable in the marketplace and to learn a skill set that will be very marketable,” Dr. Miles said. “Even as faculty, these are good skill sets for us to have, especially with respect to analytics and big data.”

Barry Shuster, interim chair of the NCCU Department of Hospitality and Tourism Administration, said the integration of SAP systems-related skill sets will greatly expand the possibilities for his students. “My hope is to help my students develop the traditional soft skills and management skills required by the hospitality and tourism industry, but also teach them the data analytics skills and the design thinking, which will set them apart from other hospitality programs,” he said. “It will allow students to go not only into general management, but also hospitality finance and other areas that involve more technical skill sets.”

Dr. Donna Grant, the chair of NCCU’s Department of Computer Information Systems and also the program coordinator for the Project Propel that is being established at that university, commended SAP and DSU for reaching out to other HBCUs.

“I have been involved as part of an HBCU for 8½ years now, and I have never had an initiative where we have worked together,” Dr. Grant said. “ I think it is fabulous, because when we work together, we are much more powerful. We can work with each other, learn off of each other and we don’t have to re-invent the wheel. We can make our students more marketable, and take them a notch higher and they can really progress.”

According to the online site EPR Software 360 – which provides evaluative comparisons of EPR software providers – SAP is the top enterprise resource planning market share leader in the world, particularly among Fortune 1000 and Global 5000 companies. It notes that the company has achieved its success due to its “extremely deep accounting and distribution software suites along with tightly integrated financials, manufacturing, human resource, payroll and customer relationship management software systems.”

DSU established its initial Project Propel partnership with SAP in 2015. Over the last year, College of Business faculty and some recent graduates received the requisite training that has enabled them to integrate SAP technologies and concepts into the curriculum and expose DSU students to the skill sets in demand for this technology. The formation of STOMPP saw more than 150 students – from all five of the University’s colleges – register to be a part of the organization, through which their horizons were broadened through a speakers’ series and workshops. It also provided training for students who were unable to take the courses that were integrated with the SAP materials this past school year.

The robust development of Project Propel at DSU has put the University in its current leadership position of being able to not only serve as the site where other HBCUs can receive the same training, but also share its experience in curriculum integration and the engagement of the students. Meanwhile, DSU is developing its own team of “thought leaders” – currently faculty from the College of Business and the College of Mathematics, Natural Sciences and Technology who are able to teach the concepts.

DSU and SAP will continue to provide support for other HBCUs through the establishment of a SAP/DSU website (saphbcu.desu.edu) that will serve as a resource for additional information.

Donna Covington, the dean of DSU’s College of Business and director of the DSU/SAP Center of Excellence, said with the success of the first training of HBCU partners, DSU will be looking forward to providing training for additional HBCUs. At the same time, DSU will also continue to expand the internal training to other DSU colleges and strengthen the student engagement work on campus through STOMPP.

“We’re just starting; there is a lot more to do to take it across the University,” Dean Covington said.

And that will give DSU more experience and innovations to share with other HBCUs in the future.