ERP Consultant: With expert help through ERP selection and implementation

Which ERP providers are there at all? How do the individual solutions differ from one another? And what requirements does our company place on the software? When implementing ERP solutions in companies, decision-makers repeatedly face the same, guiding questions.
The problem: The specific “ERP expertise” in the company is often not high enough to make truly well-founded decisions when selecting and implementing ERP. The solution to this can be an ERP consultant. Because the professionals are not paid by ERP vendors, they ideally advise companies independently and professionally.

What is ERP software?

Enterprise Resource Planning is software that is used for the resource planning of companies. These resources include above all capital, employees, raw materials and operating resources. The goal of ERP is to distribute these resources as efficiently as possible, thereby creating competitive advantages.

ERP can be understood in somewhat less abstract terms as a large, central data network within the company. All departments and employees have—based on their permissions—access to the data. For example, sales can access information on current delivery times during a sales conversation. Purchasing can immediately commission suppliers based on acquired orders.

ERP significantly simplifies communication, or rather the data exchange within the company. Information can be transmitted much faster—and with fewer errors. This, in turn, has a positive effect on delivery times and qualities, which should please increasingly demanding customers. 

What does an ERP consultant do?

If a company has decided to implement ERP, a multi-step process begins: First, companies define what they want to achieve with the ERP implementation and what is actually required. Then comes the selection of providers, until finally the ERP implementation and the Go-Live take place. Independent ERP consultants support companies in all these steps:

• Requirements specification: Before companies contact the first ERP provider, they create a requirements specification. In it, the project managers define what the ERP must be able to do. To make the goals and wishes clear, the ERP consultant analyzes existing business processes and develops suitable system designs.
   
• Optimization: Already based on the analysis of the business processes, an initial optimization can be carried out in the company. Existing processes are altered so that they later fit ERP compatibility more easily.
   
• Selection: Based on the requirements specification, ERP consultants and companies jointly search for suitable ERP providers. In principle, the consultants know the market very well and should also act independently. They can quickly compile a short list with two to four potential ERP partners.
   
• Implementation: If the choice then falls on one ERP provider, companies, consultants and providers implement the software together. The consultant, among other things, runs initial test runs and tests the functionality of the entire system. The consultant also contributes their expertise to employee training and coordination with various departments.
   

What distinguishes the ERP consultant?

What good ERP consultants should fundamentally be characterized by has already been hinted at in the basics. The expert should be independent above all, i.e., they should not be in any direct connection with the ERP providers. Only in this way can an individualized consultation tailored to the needs of the company take place. Such consultants often work in specialized management consulting firms.

Furthermore, the consultant's expertise distinguishes them. When looking for suitable consultants, it is therefore especially important to answer the following questions:

• How much experience does the consultant or the consulting team have in general?
• What professional background does the consultant have?
• Can the consultant provide references in similar industries or company sizes?

If the consultant has so far, for example, worked exclusively for large corporations, they are probably not the right choice for a medium-sized company. In such cases, there is always a specialist who can assess the individual requirements of one's own company as accurately as possible. 

How can an ERP consultant help a company?

“What we need, we know ourselves—why should we hire an external consultant?” Project managers and the company's leadership repeatedly ask themselves this question. But the expert's expertise should not be underestimated. He can provide ideas that the company has not yet even considered, simply because not all the functions and variants of ERP systems are known.

Moreover, the consultant is not "blind to the business". He has a neutral, objective view of all processes in the company. From a company's perspective, however, the question also arises as to how expensive the consultant is. From a cost perspective, it mainly depends on how intensively the ERP selection and subsequent implementation should be supported. Has the company already prepared a requirements specification, and should the expert merely review it once more? Or should the consultant really analyze all business processes from scratch? When considering value for money, companies can also engage the consultant only for certain steps of the ERP system implementation and selection.

Conclusion: ERP consultants can add value

ERP consultants support companies particularly in the creation of a requirements specification and in the selection of the ERP provider. Here, independent consultations can provide valuable suggestions because they are not blinded by day-to-day operations.
Whether the consultants should also accompany the selection process depends on the choice of the ERP provider. In most cases, the providers themselves also advise companies, conduct training for employees and carry out extensive test runs of the ERP software. An external ERP consultant is not strictly necessary for this.