It might be a good idea to face your ERP consultant once a while in the office and invite him or her on business lunch. But is it really required component? The answer is ‘probably not’. Critical thing is to get quality consulting.
If you need training then person should be familiar with business logic. Or if you need data fix then you would probably prefer somebody who is experienced in technology consulting. We would like to organize this small paper in the form of questions and answers. If you have your own question and it is not answered here feel free to email it to us and see coordinates below. Let’s begin:
Q. How does remote support work?A. Most popular method is web session. Good example is Citrix Gotomeeting. When you need help technician creates new session and sends you URL link to join it. Then you share your screen, keyboard and mouse. Web session is interactive by its nature. If you have development project then you probably don’t need to be with programmer all the time. Here popular methods are remote connection to your server via something like GotomyPC or Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection and VPN
Q. What kind of work could be done remotely?A. There are no limits except probably hardware related issues. Popular examples are user training, version update, customization, Crystal reports design, integration with external system, new model demo and similar sales engineering work and data repair
Q. Why would we switch to remote model if we have local resellers around?A. There are advantages as well as some minuses. Local visit needs to be scheduled and it is associated with travel expenses in the form of mileage reimbursement and maybe also parking fees. Second method does not have travel cost component and plus help could be given immediately in most of the situations. We would also recommend consider local business model. Traditional ERP implementation organization has to depend on software licenses sale and generic or maybe better say basic implementation. It might be difficult for them to afford such directions as customizations and software development. They also have to take all types of customers and could not develop specialization in certain industry niches as local market is relatively diversified and small. Remote support is typically offered by nationwide and international resellers backed by ‘Software Development Factories’ and they can afford to develop specializations
Q. We have good relations with our local VAR. What would be the cause for us to think about second opinion?A. It is when local partner cannot help you with something what is important for you. For example it might be data corruption or maybe second phase where you plan custom integration in SDK, etc.
Q. We have old version running in production. It is 2005A. Our consulting partner indicated that it is not interested in supporting something which is that old. They indicated that they cannot afford to train technicians to deal with obsolete functionalityA. They have good reasons as they have to stay in business with reasonable cost. In larger organization providing nationwide service there is a chance to find guru type of folks who are working with application long time and probably even since inception. At this time of June 2012 version 2007A/B and 2005A/B are no longer supported by SAP directly. But this doesn’t mean that nobody can help you
Q. We are midmarket company but we have the attributes of ‘multinational corporation’ as we have subsidiaries in several world regions including Sao Paulo, Beijing and Moscow. We got big issues implementing SAP B1 for international offices and we had to revisit the implementation later on. Our local partner here in Chicago doesn’t carry consultants who are fluent in Portuguese, Russian and Chinese. We are thinking about consolidating all the branches and migrating implementations from internationally located server to the once hosted in the headquarters. Plus we need to make GL chart of accounts to be based on central templateA. We have seen business cases similar to yours. You need to locate VAR who is specializing in consulting to multinationals. We agree with your points. Plus there are numerous ‘underwater rocks’ when you are expanding internationally. Good example is Brazilian Public Digital Bookkeeping System (SPED) requirements
Q. Our local provider is popular in the area. However our customization project was screwed up. Custom module is ‘buggy’ and it doesn’t work according to specifications. We are thinking about appealing to second opinionA. Well it is probably good idea to pick somebody who is more technology oriented and familiar with your industry. On your checklist consider to give more weight to the line where you are checking expertise and deprioritize requirements for consultants to be local
Please call us 1-866-304-3265, 1-269-605-4904, help@efaru.com. We have local presence in Chicagoland, Southern California, Atlanta Georgia, South West Michigan, Houston and Dallas areas of Texas. We serve customers USA and Canada nationwide and internationally via web sessions and phone conferences (Skype is welcomed). We are working on Brazilian ERP consulting market in Sao Paulo since 2004
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