As part of the program, students attended a joint kick-off event featuring various courses about the subject "Introduction and Application of ERP Systems".

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a type of software system used to help organizations optimally automate and manage core business processes as well as company resources. Organizations use the software to integrate, automate and synchronize information, data and processes on a central platform.  The software has become an indispensable part of a digitalized work environment and as a result, those skilled in ERP are in high demand.

Roland Karlsböck (Strategic Information & Innovation Management at voestalpine Stahl GmbH and an external lecturer at the JKU) initiated the program which includes a strong network of partners in the areas of system manufacturers, system implementers and users in Upper Austria, all of whom work closely to support university education. The goal is to combat the shortage of skilled workers and provide participants in the ERPSummer program with essential university-level skills that help them apply what they learn in the classroom to real-world practices.

The additional understanding of ERP is an ideal supplement to a student’s university education, benefitting both the companies and the students. Students acquire hands-on experience and thanks to the additional professional training, they become even more highly qualified in the job market. Students can also earn academic credit to count toward autonomous coursework requirements.

Strong Interest Among Students
The program registration period has passed and was a complete success. Almost 100 students from a wide range of majors (from medicine to law) quickly registered for the program. A particularly encouraging aspect is that women make up 50% of the program.

Barbara Krumay, head of the Institute of Information Systems - Information Engineering at the JKU Linz, is in charge of this initiative and remarked: "We are delighted to offer JKU students a unique opportunity to acquire additional, in-demand skills to support their professional future. The program is open to all students at the JKU regardless of their major or prior education. Students not only learn about basic concepts, data and processes in ERP systems, they also acquire real-world experience based on case studies. We work together with our partners: the voestalpine, KPMG and SAP as well as in cooperation with the Vienna University of Technology. Both students and the JKU benefit as students can boost their employability factor as well indicate direct collaboration with these companies, and the JKU contributes to supporting digitalization and digital transformation."

Students interested in the ERPSummer program can learn more on the JKU website.

Partner Reactions

Thomas Hohenauer (SAP Advisory Partner, KPMG) is enthusiastic: "We consider ourselves a driving force in application-oriented learning. The ERPSummer program is based on interactive educational concepts to combine theory and practice. We aim to focus on how to get students to think more creatively as well as develop innovative approaches to come up with solutions. As a location of technology, Upper Austria in particular offers participants a wide range of opportunities to apply what they have learned to real-world practices, thereby helping to actively shape Austria's digital future. "

Gregor Grindjan (CEO at SAP Austria) also emphasized the program’s importance: "One of the biggest challenges facing Austrian companies today is the shortage of skilled workers, especially in the IT sector and that includes us, our customers, and in the SAP partner network. The program gives students additional professional qualifications along with targeted support to acquire important SAP skills that will be useful to them in the future because it opens up countless job opportunities and interesting careers, both in Austria and abroad."

Martin Nenning (head of the IT voestalpine Steel Division) agrees: "As a global and innovative steel and technology group, we consider any increase in digitalization from an opportunistic perspective. In an effort to continuously improve our internal processes and work methods by applying state-of-the-art technologies, ERP systems form our companies’ digital backbones. The technology, however, is not what makes the difference; it is the employees who work on the system every day to redesign and continuously improve their processes; it touches all areas of the company and this is why we believe that together with our partner SAP, it is vital to open up new opportunities for students at the Johannes Kepler University Linz. In addition to domain-specific knowledge ranging from procurement to sales, planning, production, and logistics, applying ERP systems with the corresponding understanding of processes and data has become one of today’s indispensable skills."

See: https://www.jku.at/institut-fuer-wirtschaftsinformatik-information-engineering/news-events/erpsummer-kick-off to learn more about a second program session in September.