BEYOND ESSENTIALS
Core insight: The UNITED VARS Academy exists because SAP expertise alone doesn't make an international project succeed – reading a different culture, communication style, and pace of business does.
Consequence: Consultants who go through it report more confidence managing customers and colleagues across cultures, and a working network of people around the world they can actually call.
Mid-market angle: For a mid-market SAP customer, that means the consultant on their project has been trained to adapt to how their company works, not to run one standardized playbook regardless of country.
An SAP consultant can know a system inside out and still lose a project abroad – not because the configuration is wrong, but because nobody read the room. Find out what the UNITED VARS Academy actually teaches, and why "value over features and functions" is the whole point.
This post is adapted from "Life@All for One," the podcast from UNITED VARS member All for One, in an interview-style format.
Guests: Emily Rebmann, Business Development at UNITED VARS, and Alexander Herfort, Managing Director of UNITED VARS.
Hosts: Franziska Völker, Project Manager ERP Public Cloud, and Rafael Wedemeyer, Senior Expert Employer Branding & Social Media.
Host: Why was the UNITED VARS Academy created, and what can participants expect to take away from it?
Emily: SAP expertise was never the bottleneck for us. We have an enormous amount of it across roughly 100 countries, but delivering an international project takes more than technical expertise. The moment you cross a border, you're dealing with different cultures, different communication styles, different expectations, and different ways of doing business.
The UNITED VARS Academy brings people from across the alliance together for an intensive week – not to learn more technology, but to rethink what it means to be a consultant, project manager, or sales professional in an international setting. We work on understanding the customer's perspective, communicating value, international project delivery, change management, and cultural awareness – a lot of it learned from each other, in a way you rarely get inside your own company.
People leave with a broader perspective, more confidence working across cultures, and a genuine group of people around the world they can call on when they need support. It also gives our members transparency into who their fellow members actually are, beyond a name on a map.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE HERE →
Host: What are the biggest cultural differences you've run into working internationally?
Emily: Running the Academy in places like Spain, Japan, Thailand, and Canada has taught me how much culture shows up in the practical details. In Spain, the whole rhythm of the day runs later than what I'm used to from Germany or Australia – show up for dinner at 7pm and you'll be the only one there. In Japan, hierarchy, seniority, and how you communicate matter a great deal – punctuality and politeness carry real weight, and a bow replaces the closeness that's completely normal in Spain. In Canada, people are polite and diplomatic, so you have to listen closely to what's actually being said.
The biggest lesson for me: there's no single right way of working internationally. You have to take the time to understand the local culture, read the room, and stay open.
Alex: Early in my career, I spent a week delivering SAP training in China and got no feedback from the room at all. At first I assumed I was doing something wrong – bad material, wrong approach. It turned out to be a cultural difference, nothing more.
Understanding your own culture, and how it differs from others, matters as much as understanding theirs. We're not doing it the "right" way and someone else the wrong way – we're just doing it differently, and everyone gets to their goal in their own way.
Host: You've described the Academy's philosophy as "value over features and functions." What does that actually mean, and why does it matter today?
Emily: There are two sides to it. Practically, the Academy isn't another technical training – our members already have excellent access to that through the SAP ecosystem, and we're not bringing people together to learn product features.
We focus on turning technical expertise into successful customer outcomes: understanding the customer, communicating that understanding back to them, managing an international project, working efficiently across cultures, building trust, navigating change, and approaching problems from angles they might not have considered before. It's tempting to file that under "soft skills," but that undersells it.
The gap between having the right technology and actually delivering the right outcome is real, and closing that gap is exactly what this builds.
Alex: And it happens in a live environment. When we put together an Academy cohort, we make sure the group is genuinely diverse. We don't lecture people about cultural differences – we let them experience it directly, working alongside people from other countries for a week.
For a mid-market customer watching from the outside, this is where the value actually lands: it's the difference between a consultant who can configure the system and one who can also manage the customer, the timeline, and the team across three countries without losing anyone along the way.
Host: How many people usually attend a UNITED VARS Academy?
Emily: Our biggest cohort was 25 people, in Japan – a great experience that lost nothing for being larger. On average it's around 15, which seems to be the sweet spot. My honest advice to anyone weighing it up: give it a go.
I've run this many times, and not one person has walked away calling it a waste of time. Everyone leaves with a new perspective, an open mind, a different way of approaching problems, and a genuine network. I met a lead consultant from our partner in Japan at an industry event this year, purely through an Academy connection, and later visited another Academy friend in Germany. That's the kind of connection this actually builds. In the end, you're not doing it for a certificate at the end of the week.
Host: Can each of you share a memorable international experience that really captures what UNITED VARS is all about?
Emily: Not a project, but an Academy memory: in Japan, at the end of the week, our whole group – different countries, different companies, different ways of working all week – ended up doing karaoke together, singing songs from our own cultures.
Karaoke carries real social meaning in Japan and is a genuine part of relationship-building there, so it meant a lot to our Japanese hosts too. It created an informal space where hierarchy softened and people connected personally. Different backgrounds, one team, one goal – that captured it for me better than any project debrief could.
Alex: I'd add that karaoke in general asks you to let your guard down in front of colleagues, and that same openness shows up everywhere from our Annual Meeting down to the Academy.
Real friendships come out of these programs – I joke that I'll be godfather to the first baby born out of an Academy pairing. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm confident it will.
Host: What advice would each of you give someone who wants to build an international career in consulting or technology?
Emily: Work for a UNITED VARS member and join the Academy – it gives you the best foundation to start from.
Alex: Just start. Don't be afraid. When I was first sent abroad early in my career, I was genuinely nervous about my English. It ended up making me a better consultant. The biggest perceived barrier is usually language, but roughly 80% of English speakers worldwide aren't native speakers, and people are generous with anyone who's clearly trying – whether that's getting dining etiquette wrong in Japan or business customs wrong in China. People notice the effort far more than the mistakes.
Emily: Exactly – be open about not knowing everything, and do it anyway. I've had many Academy participants worry their English "isn't good enough." It's never once affected the experience or what they took away from it.
Mid-sized companies should go global without losing speed or local identity. UNITED VARS brings together hand-picked local market leaders with real people on the ground in 100+ countries to remove legal, cultural, and language barriers. As a strategic alliance, UNITED VARS provides clear accountability from start to finish. UNITED VARS is the world's only SAP Platinum Partner alliance, delivering end-to-end SAP services for the mid-market.
stronger than one.
The UNITED VARS Academy is an intensive week-long program that brings consultants, project managers, and sales professionals from across the alliance together to build the cross-cultural and customer-facing skills international SAP projects need. It is deliberately not another technical SAP training.
Professionals from any UNITED VARS member company can attend. Cohorts are built deliberately diverse by country, role, and company, so participants experience different working styles firsthand instead of just discussing them.
Standard SAP training covers product features and functions, and UNITED VARS members already have strong access to that through the SAP ecosystem. The Academy focuses instead on turning technical expertise into customer outcomes – understanding the customer, communicating value, and working effectively across cultures.
Each Academy runs for one intensive week, with cohorts averaging around 15 participants and the largest so far reaching 25 people in Japan. Locations have included Spain, Japan, Thailand, and Canada, chosen partly to expose participants to genuinely different business cultures during the week itself.
Customers get a consultant who has learned to read their specific business context instead of running one standardized playbook regardless of country. In practice, that means fewer stalled international projects, faster alignment across time zones and cultures, and a project team that can manage the customer relationship, not just the technical configuration.