Why Hire an ERP Consultant?

You are probably visiting this site because you are thinking about hiring an enterprise resource planning (ERP) consultant to help you select and implement your ERP. But, you’re thinking, at this point you are just gathering information. You have a guy in-house who can probably do it. Or maybe you even have an IT group in-house. So why spend the extra money to have someone do this for you?

Here’s why: An ERP consultant can help you get the most benefit from your ERP implementation and actually save you money, too. When looking for an ERP consultant, you’ll want to find one that paves the road for you and provides the best ROI for your investment.>Consider these points:

1. Additional resources—Your ERP consultant should be a valuable member of the project team from start to finish.  He should be your ERP partner, providing labor and skills that supplement your IT team.

2. Project management— From gathering requirements and “selling” your project through implementation through prost-implementation training and support, an experienced ERP consultant should be an expert ERP project manager.

3. Top Priority—Your ERP consultant will likely have one priority with regard to your organization and that’s your ERP project. He or she should be able to push the project through to completion quickly when an IT department, bogged down by many other projects and priorities, cannot.

4. Market savvy—A good ERP consultant knows the ERP marketplace.  She should not only know about the products she sells, she should be familiar with the whole market, including complementary third party products.  She should be able to recommend a solution tailored to the precise needs of your organization.  Frequently the consulting firm you choose will have even developed routines, work-arounds, fixes, or utilities that make your implementation go faster and smoother and make your finished solution fit your organization like a glove.

5. Knowledge of processes and measures—Your ERP consultant should have experience in many ERP solutions in firms of different sizes and in different industries, resulting in experience with many processes, measures, KPIs, reports, and visualizations.  He should be able to adapt those processes and content for your company or use his knowledge to help you create the ERP processes and reporting that best reflects your company’s needs.

6. Risk aversion and management strategies—Your ERP consultant should know what pitfalls to avoid and how to deal with the things you can’t avoid that can potentially derail your project.

7. On time and within budget—Knowing what to do and avoiding rework can save hundreds or even thousands of hours.  Your ERP consultant should know what infrastructure is needed, how to optimize the software, and how to integrate your ERP with existing systems to enable you to deliver your ERP project on time and within budget.

8. Resources—ERP consultants should have a whole network of resources—experts on every aspect of the solution, special service contracts, memberships to professional organizations, and subscriptions to publications, blogs, and documentation services that enhance their knowledge and empower them to find solutions to problems quickly.

9. Get the most from your investment—The ERP consulting firm should use its resources and experience to help you achieve your project goals while getting the best return on your investment.  It should help you provide a rewarding user experience that will ensure that users will actually use the new solution.

10. Post-implementation—Your ERP consultant should be there after the project is completed to provide training and support.  The entire consulting team must be committed to your success and the on-going success of your project.  When they are, they will make it work because they know that their future success hinges on yours.

NexVue is 100% committed to your success.For more information and to get started on your ERP initiative, call NexVue at 203.327.0800 or email us at info@nexvue.com.

Click here to see a complimentary webinar to learn more about Acumatica Cloud-based ERP.