Companies sometimes think that they're saving money by not hiring an ERP consultant, but in reality, the lack of an experienced consultant can lead to costly and time consuming mistakes that may prevent you from achieving the full value of your new ERP system. You must also decide who is going to help you put the system into action – your implementation partner. Your successful implementation will depend as much on your finding the right partner as with finding the right software. Here are 10 ways an ERP consultant will make the entire implementation go more smoothly.
Working with consultants for the implementation of NetSuite ERP systems will result in positive business practices and advantages. A more sensible approach is to find a partner to help you. Companies that have worked side-by-side with consultants:
Benefits
It’s rare that members of your company's ERP implementation team have real ERP implementation experience, since it’s an event that most people see only once or twice in a career. Consultants do ERP implementations every day, and they know best practices for ensuring that a project meets the company’s objectives and comes in on time and on budget.
To achieve the most benefit from your new ERP system you should use the opportunity to make your business processes more efficient. There will no doubt be a lot of change to absorb in a short amount of time, and a consultant has techniques to perform gap analysis on existing processes and to map the old ways to the “To Be” process. In addition, the consultant can act as a neutral mediator to resolve the inevitable differences of opinions.
People often get excited by the possibilities of a new system, and they may seek to expand the scope of the project. Other times, people want to force the new software to match the existing processes. A consultant can help prevent your project from losing focus by bringing discussions back to the business benefits and the original objectives you set at the beginning.
Is your consultant realistic about the time frame and costs, or are they “low balling” to get the business? Don’t cut corners. Does the consultant understand the scope of work and provided a realistic estimate of what it takes in terms of their involvement and additional costs? Have they demonstrated you how much they really know about your industry and its challenges?.
Consultants can protect your organization’s interests while providing you with valuable insight you may not be able to see on your own. ERP software vendors can make their products look incredibly attractive to the inexperienced eye, and unfortunately, generic ERPs can quickly become expensive as they must be tailored to a specific organization’s needs. An experienced ERP consultant learns enough about your organization to understand what your needs are, and when paired with their knowledge of industry specific solutions, they can provide you with insight about what software solutions may be the very best fit. This means that you aren’t likely to need as many add-ons, which saves you time and money.
Most common blunder to happen is with resources projected. Having a solid understanding of the internal and external resources needed to complete the project is critical. For internal resources, understanding the time commitment needed from business users, typically in the Finance, Accounting, or Sales Process, Human Resources departments, is one of the most commonly underestimated areas. A good consultant can help you up-front about the specific duration, skills, and quantity of resources needed is critical.
Many people in your company may have project management skills, but an ERP implementation is more than just a project. Software sometimes requires that steps be performed in a certain order, and your consultant will know that. Sometimes people can’t wait to use the new system, so they shortchange the time for testing data or running a conference room pilot. The consultants experience will be invaluable in preventing problems that could derail the implementation.
This is the flip side of expertise with a particular vendor's products or in your particular industry. If an implementation partner treats you exactly the same as it does all companies in your business, including in the software it recommends, it will bring you little or no competitive advantage. A good consultant connects various processes that are essential to run a business enterprise into one single database. These processes include inventory and order management, accounting, human resources, customer relationship management (CRM), among others. By streamlining all the processes into one effective system, ERP provides your business with a shared unified model that supports multiple functions across your enterprise.
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