3 Useful Resources for Your ERP Consultant Search

We have already discussed the development of criteria with the view to matching ERP consultants with your business, but once this criteria has been established, how can you go about finding an individual who meets these critera?

While it may appear that this process should be pretty straightforward, particularly since the Net is rife with job-based human resources sites like Career Builder, TheLadders, Monster or Simply Hired. To be truthful, unless you like being spammed to death while trying to make a serious decision about a trusted advisor, you are probably better leveraging another approach.

Here are three ways to resolve your problem and find the best ERP consultant for your business and ERP project.

Collegial Word of Mouth

There’s nothing like the old boy network, and in the case of searching for the right ERP consulting resource, this approach should always be applied first. The reason is simple; colleagues offer the most up-to-date information associated with any positive or negative business value, particularly when it comes to making money. This is not necessarily due to the good nature value of a colleague, but more about the competitive nature of generating revenue.

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If one spends some time listening to a colleague praise or trash talk a resource it's likely that one will either shy away from that resource, or follow suit after-the-fact based on the confidence factor alone. The best thing about this particular resource, is that it will only cost you a couple of drinks down the local waterhole.

Professional Business Recruiting

Business recruiters are pricey but useful, particularly when your ERP consulting requirements are complex and you require a quick decision without a spending a lot time dealing with intellectual foreplay.

Business recruiters are pricey but useful, particularly when your ERP consulting requirements are complex and you require a quick decision

In this model, you are primarily looking for specific expertise supported by a well-papered track record. Once the recruiter introduces the client to the resource, the final step is to personally vet the individual, and that’s really where the rubber hits the road. Having done hundreds of these kinds of screening meetings over the years, my advice is that if your list of candidate questions are prepared appropriately, you should have a pretty good idea of the quality of the consultant within the first 30 minutes, and decide to either finish up with more personal questioning extending up to an hour, or shut the meeting off and move on. Again, when using a recruiter, efficiency is the goal, but you had better have your checkbook out well before you pull the trigger.

IT Sourcing

Utilizing IT outsource firms like Bain, McKenzie, or the like can be as expensive as recruiters, but offer a more tailored ERP consulting experience. These firms pride themselves on the quality of their resources, and I have never known one of these premier consultants that didn’t have his/her stuff in a very tidy bag. The downside is that these resource providers typically like reports in favor of practical performance, so if you are part of a small to near mid-sized company, you are likely to be unhappy with results, since the old axiom asserting work ‘paid by the pound,’ will apply in this case.

So, there you go. To be repetitive, yet still critically germane, every business is different just as ERP consultants are different, so look at your options before you accept one model or the other for identifying the best ERP consultant for your business. Nevertheless, as long as you think before you jump things will work out at the end of the day.