Women in SAP- the round up!

To kick this off, let’s go right back to the start….

When I returned to work after having my baby, I made the move into the SAP team here at Precision Sourcing and started from scratch with building my SAP network.

After having spent 8 years recruiting within the Software Development space, it soon became clear that there were a lot more women in the SAP space than there ever were in the Software space! Within a few weeks, I saw my colleague (and future bridesmaid) Leisha Morrison host her Women in Data event and it sparked an idea… I wanted to host an event for Women who work in the SAP space and effectively recreate the success of Women in Data.

I did some research and I could see that there was a massive gap for events that target women in the SAP world in Sydney, so over lunch I picked Leisha’s brain and kicked it all off by putting together a Women in SAP Committee.

So then over a few glasses of wine at the Ivy, a group of talented women ranging from C level to ‘on the tools’ discussed ideas as how this networking event could grow, and Women in SAP was born….

Ok so that’s enough of the back story, let’s look at the event itself.

On a cold and rainy night in mid-October, we held the first ever Women in SAP event at the new and improved Precision Sourcing offices.

With proceedings due to start at 6pm, by 5.55pm I was sitting around a grazing platter and bottles of wine and I started to panic… where was everyone? I felt like the poor kid you see on Facebook who holds a party only for no one to show up. The lump in my throat was getting bigger and bigger when suddenly, people arrived in groups and I could breathe again.

After the wine glasses had been filled and the introductions had been made, Bernadette King kicked off proceedings talking about the issues she sees being at the forefront of both the IT and HR functions within Woolworths.

Given that we had a real mix of attendees from the HR Director from SAP Australia to an SAP Program Manager at an end client, it was great when people got involved and gave their opinions from different standpoints.

Here are some key take outs from the evening… (we covered a lot in a short space of time)

• Diversity at Woolworths is great, but they are at the beginning of their journey
• Diversity means nothing unless there is inclusion as a continued follow up
• The lines between IT and other business functions are becoming blurred, will there be a need for a dedicated IT function in the future?
• Some of the women at the event felt that they had not been discriminated against as a woman during their career and that is great to hear – however, what we need to be exploring is how they can use their voice for their peers and digging deeper to see if it really is the case that they have not been discriminated against
• The gender pay gap – the reasons for the gap are outdated in this modern world.

As the evening continued, we covered several topics that have given me lots of food for thought for future events so stay tuned…. We have the next 3 in the pipeline including one in partnership with the talent team at Atlassian.

Thanks to everyone who braved the rain and made the first event a hit!

See you at the next one…