A little background on ERP consulting first
I have been in the ERP business since 1997. The first five years were spent as a consultant before I moved into a sales role in 2002. That time in the field gave me something I still draw on today: a real sense of what our customers are up against when they go through an implementation. At Visual South, we have always believed that the consultant you choose matters just as much as the software. If you want to dig into why that is, this blog covers it in more detail.
If you are here for the basics of ERP consulting, keep reading.
What does an ERP consultant do?
Start with the obvious: your consultant needs to know the software. Not just know it well enough to get by but really know it. How it is designed, how to configure it, where it is strong, and where it has limits. That depth matters because ERP is not a one-size-fits-all solution. A consultant who truly knows the system can find creative approaches to problems that a less experienced one would not even see. The same issue, two different consultants, can produce very different outcomes.
They also need some grounding in your industry. Not necessarily years of direct experience in your specific niche, but enough of a foundation to speak your language. Here is something worth keeping in mind, though: a lot of what ERP does is universal. Buying, selling, quoting, tracking costs. Those things work the same way across most manufacturers. You may feel like your operation is uniquely complex, and parts of it probably are. But a good consultant has seen enough companies to know where the real differences are and where things are more common than you think. They learn from the people they work with, and they are honest about what they do not know.
And then there are people skills. This one gets underestimated. Implementing ERP is a people project as much as a technology project. Companies do not do this often, and it can be stressful. A good consultant brings steadiness to that process. They know when to be firm and when to be flexible. They lead.
So that covers who the person should be. What about the work itself?
How to evaluate an ERP consultant
You can talk about features and methodology all day. But if you are not comfortable with the people you are working with, none of it will go smoothly. Comfort and trust are not soft considerations. They are practical ones.
Here is something we tell every customer: it is not if you will hit problems during an implementation. It is when. Every implementation has them. What separates a good engagement from a rough one is whether you have a partner you trust enough to work through those problems with. That trust has to be built before things go sideways.
A few things to look for when you are sizing up a consultant:
- Can they communicate at every level? They should be just as comfortable on the shop floor as they are in a room with your executive team. The message changes; the substance does not.
- Will they tell you what you need to hear? A good consultant gives you a clear picture of what is going well and what needs attention. You do not want someone who only tells you what you want to hear.
- Can they solve problems creatively? When the standard approach does not fit, can they find another way? That only comes from real depth of experience with the software.
- What is their style? This one is worth asking about directly.
On that last point, here is a story. Early in my career, a customer came to us needing help with a specific part of the system. I knew who the right consultant was for the job. I also knew how they operated: very direct, not the hand-holding type. Before setting anything up, I called the customer. I wanted them to know upfront what they were getting.
The customer said: “I am so glad you asked. The person on our side who will be working with them actually needs someone direct.” It was a great fit. The engagement went well.
There is not always a perfect match. But asking about style early either gets you there or helps you set the right expectations before work begins. Either way, you are better off for having asked.
Elements of ERP consulting
Your consultant leads the way through all of this. Here is what a solid ERP consulting engagement actually looks like:
Project management
ERP consultants are always managing something. Sometimes a piece of the overall project, sometimes the whole thing. There are deadlines to hit and tasks to track, both on the consultant side and the customer side. Keeping things moving in an orderly way is part of the job, not an afterthought.
Data conversion
This tends to be one of the first things tackled, and for good reason: it takes time. Your consultant will help pull data out of your legacy system and get it into a workable format, usually Excel. From there, the work is about quality: no duplicates, accurate records, everything mapped correctly, so the right data ends up in the right place in the new system. Cutting corners here creates headaches later. For a deeper look at how this process works, this article on ERP data migration is worth reading.
Business requirements
Before anything gets built, the consultant needs to understand your business. This phase is divided by functional area. The people who know how finance works, how the shop floor operates, how orders move through the system: all of them feed into what the ERP needs to do. Getting this right saves a lot of reworking down the road.
Solution architecture
This is where the actual configuration happens, and it is iterative. Sometimes the requirements fit neatly with how the ERP works out of the box. Often, they do not quite fit, and there is a conversation about whether to adjust the process or adjust the software. This is the most critical part of the whole engagement. A good consultant knows how to work through resistance to change and push past "this is how we’ve always done it" to get at what the business actually needs. The output is new procedures. New tools mean new ways of working. If you want to understand what goes into this phase at a technical level, this overview of ERP system architecture is a good starting point.
One thing worth flagging here: there is a meaningful difference between configuring an ERP and customizing it. Configuration works within the system’s native toolset. Customization changes the source code, which can lock you out of future upgrades and create support problems down the line. This article explains the difference and why it matters.
Testing and validation
Once procedures are in place, users get trained on how to do their jobs in the new system. Then comes testing, which is really about flushing out what still needs work. Issues get resolved, the solution gets refined, and the converted data gets validated at the same time. Done well, this phase catches problems before go-live instead of after.
Troubleshooting
Something unexpected will come up. It always does. A user gets an error; a process produces a result nobody expected. The consultant diagnoses it and finds a fix. This is where experience really shows. A consultant who has been through a lot of implementations has probably seen something close to whatever you are dealing with. That pattern recognition is valuable.
In conclusion
ERP consulting covers a lot of ground. At Visual South, we help companies run better through our ERP consulting services for Infor ERP. If you are evaluating ERP, or just trying to figure out where to start, we are happy to talk. Reach out and let’s have a conversation.
Additional resources
Want to go deeper? These articles are worth a read:
