When you Small Business ERP application implemented and you are running in production with standard functionality it is probably the time to plan so-called phase two. In the second phase you usually plan something that what important factor in initial ERP system selection and that it is compatible with your external database, CRM or maybe EDI protocol.
In other words here you are appealing to programming in integration and customization projects. It might be a surprise for you that your initial consulting firm might show little interest and be busy with new software sales, installation and setup for other customers. But the nature of local brick and mortar consulting organization is software selling to new local customers and standard generic implementation. These people might be in the situation where they are serving all the industries or whatever coming their way. It might mean that they cannot afford programmers in permanent staff as customization work might be occasional and not regular. Then the question is ‘what are my options?’ In this small paper we would like to explain industry rules and recommend approach to software developing projects:
1. Traditional Consulting firm or so-called ‘functional consulting.’ These organizations typically have local presence and certified consultants in staff or close relations with certified subcontractors. The way to get new customer is purchasing local leads from telemarketing firms or get references directly from ERP vendor. Then they have to contact you, do several presentations, meet key people in your organization, show you sales engineer and proposed project manager or lead consultant and hopefully close the deal. Local certified ERP consultant should be experienced guy with at least five years of practice and these people command high salary and bonuses. If you hire certified functional consultant the way to make money on his or her services is to provide high workload or usually at least fifty percent of the hours should be billable. Now in order to sell ERP system you have to maintain experienced sales person who knows the application and perfect sales engineers. Working hours of these folks are dedicated to sales calls, presentations and proposals writing. Business owner typically expects that sales team efforts should be financed from sold software licenses margin and this is probably understandable. So in best case scenario such company is in permanent run from one initial sale to another one with standard following installation and setup. We do not have intention to be critical as this model works and these people do wonderful job by increasing the number of customers of their chosen Corporate ERP application
2. Secondary Consulting Market or the firm dedicated to technical consulting. These organizations might be not local but instead pursuing nationwide market as they have to maintain large number of programmers in staff where local market doesn’t provide enough workload. At the same time it is difficult to expect from the customer that he will pay for nationwide travel of certified functional consultants as local firms are happy to provide the same service without travel cost. In this market situation technology oriented firm may decide to give up software margin portion of the revenue and concentrate its efforts in programming and integration services. In order to be profitable such firm has to provide reasonable workload to its programmers. So it is pretty much reverse way comparing to the one described in the first paragraph
3. Having said all the above we would like to note that the people who did wonderful sales job and initial implementation might not be the best choice for the phase two where you have to appeal to software development professionals
4. Please call us 1-866-304-3265, 1-269-605-4904 (for international customers, where our representatives pick up the phone in Naperville and St. Joseph, MI call centers). help@efaru.com. We have local presence in Atlanta, Chicago, Southern California, South West Michigan, Houston and Dallas areas of Texas. We serve customers USA, Canada, Mexico and Brazil nationwide and internationally via web sessions and phone conferences (Skype is welcomed). Our consultants speak English, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Chinese. One of our experiences is international Corporate ERP and Consolidated Financial reporting
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