How to Choose the Right SAP ERP Consultant for Your Company
Selecting the right ERP functional consultant for your company can be a game-changer in this challenging business scenario. An experienced ERP consultant can assist you in setting up a business and preparing it for the future. ERP selection consultants can guide entrepreneurs in selecting and integrating the most suitable ERP system in line with business models. These days, enterprises across all industry sectors need to choose the right ERP consultant to meet various objectives related to ERP implementation.
In this article, We will dig deep into the importance of an ERP consultant and discuss the criteria for selecting the right one for your organization. Let’s with SAP Business One to start from scratch and understand the types of ERP consultants.
What is an ERP Consultant?
As mentioned above, your company needs an expert ERP functional consultant to implement ERP software per the exact business requirements. An ERP consultant is a professional who can understand the business requirements of your company irrespective of industry domain and size. A professional who listens to your company’s needs and objectives for suggesting the most suitable ERP software solution is an ERP consultant.
You can take the assistance of an ERP consultant for selecting the right ERP software and implementing the same properly to leverage its benefits. Here it is fair to mention that the ERP solution consultants can be from any field of IT with hands-on experience working with SMEs and resolving queries.
Such expert ERP functional consultants can provide you with 360-degree assistance in establishing an uninterrupted workflow and streamlining operations. Let’s see various types of ERP consultants and their importance for your business.
Types of ERP Consultants
A customized ERP solution has many features and functionality to meet the diverse requirements of modern businesses. We can segregate ERP consultants into five categories based on their ability to make the most of an ERP solution. These categories are-
 Functionality Consultant
Also known as ERP functional consultant, this professional can analyze the client’s existing business as per the ERP solution and suggest possible changes or new implementations in the existing business system. An ERP functional consultant can analyze the company’s data and put their years of experience and domain expertise to suggest the most suitable ERP software. Simply put, an ERP functional consultant can help you take your business towards more scalability and profitability using an advanced ERP solution.
 Implementation Consultant
An ERP implementation consultant takes care of implementing a new ERP or making changes in the existing ERP system. An implementation consultant identifies the needs and assesses various processes to find a suitable ERP solution. An ERP implementation specialist also makes sure that the entire process remains seamless and on time. The specialist can deal with errors during the implementation process and try to resolve them as soon as possible.
 Customization Consultant
When it comes to customizing or upgrading the existing ERP software, you need a customization consultant or software consultant. ERP customization consultants can modify the current system to improve its performance in line with the changing business needs. The consultant also takes care of the features and functionality while optimizing the integrated ERP system to get the most out of it. An ERP software consultant is different from ERP functional consultant.
 Solution Consultant
ERP solution consultants are also known as ERP finance consultants because they deal with issues related to finance and accounting modules of the ERP software. These consultants have expertise in both finance and accounting domains. They can come up with the most comprehensive and seamless solutions for finance, auditing, and accounting. The BFSI sector or organizations that mostly rely on Finance ERPs need such finance consultants to ensure user-friendliness and flawless functionality of the ERP solution.
 Technical Consultant
An ERP technical consultant offers assistance in addressing technical issues of the ERP solution. Technical consultants have sound knowledge of different industry sectors and business models. They can troubleshoot and find errors in advance across complex ERP and business systems. ERP technical consultants can enable organizations to ensure consistent performance of the customized ERP solution.
Why is an ERP Consultant important for your business?
An experienced ERP consultant plays a vital role in maintaining and upgrading the existing ERP system. When you want to take your organization to a new level, you just cannot ignore the importance of an ERP system consultant. As an expert in suggesting and providing clients with specific and customized ERP solutions, an ERP consultant can help you meet business challenges.
An ERP consultant works closely with your in-house team to understand the business model and workflows. They can match their working styles and objectives to those of your company so that they can identify the features and implement the right ERP solutions. Here are several ways through which they can save both money and time for their corporate clients.
ERP solution consultants participate in the process of simplifying business operations and thereby ensuring a smooth transition from a legacy to a modern system. With a vast knowledge of different solutions and technological advancements, ERP solution consultants can advise and guide people in a proper way. ERP consultants can customize the solution or gives it a personalized touch. These consultants can work across all the departments in your company. Another important point to note is that ERP software consultants can ensure that the business system and ERP software can work together for achieving the desired outcome.
What is the role of the ERP consultant?
The ERP consultant can handle all the aspects ranging from configuration to implementation and modification to customization of the ERP solutions. Every ERP consultant strives to come up with a solution that can meet the customer’s requirements effectively. In other words, an ERP consultant’s main responsibilities are successful integration and proper maintenance of the ERP software. In a way, ERP consultants play a vital role in driving the digital transformation of modern enterprises.
What does an ERP consultant do?
The ERP consultant is mainly responsible for ensuring the best practices in accomplishing daily activities and maintaining workflows in your organization. For example, an SAP ERP consultant can assist you to follow all the standards using the SAP ERP solution and enable your organization to leverage the benefits of its SME-friendly features. On one hand, ERP consultants can analyze the existing systems and business models, and on the other hand, they can assist the management to define the necessary features and design solutions.
Here are some of the responsibilities of an ERP consultant.
 User Training
ERP consultants can make users ready to take the advantage of advanced features and seamless functionality of the customized ERP solution. They can arrange training sessions to show your employees how they can utilize the ERP software more effectively. Without proper training, chances are high that your organization gets failed to achieve the desired results.
 Analysis of Existing Systems
An ERP consultant first analyzes all the business processes and identifies the requirements of your company. It is one of their responsibilities to ensure that an ERP solution works in sync with your existing business systems and tools. For companies with integrated ERP systems, an ERP consultant examines the existing system for finding weaknesses and strengths.
 Instant Technical Assistance
Be it maintenance or upgrade, you can expect effective technical assistance from an ERP consultant. They are also responsible for testing for bugs and installing new updates as and when necessary. System configuration, migration of data to the cloud, and other tasks also fall on the task list of ERP consultants.
 Project Development
An ERP consultant coordinates with your teams across various departments to ensure that the ERP system can easily satisfy their requirements. ERP consultants can make a presentation on the basis of their data related to requirement gathering and develop an ERP project while covering all the points.
Criteria for ERP Consultant Selection
These days, many companies offer ERP consulting services, and therefore, it is imperative for you to find the right partner who can ensure the success of ERP implementation. You need an ERP consultant who can suggest and assist you to integrate the software in line with your business needs and budget. Here are five top criteria you can consider for selecting the right ERP consultant for your company.
 Ability to Align ERP
It is the fundamental criterion for the right ERP consultant. You need to select a consultant who can understand the trends and requirements of your business processes to align ERP in the best possible way.
 Inclination for Best Practices
Be it an ERP functional consultant or an ERP software consultant, every type of consultant should believe in following the best practices. While streamlining processes with the ERP system, this approach can take your business to a new level.
 Customization Capabilities
It is impossible to get an ERP solution with all the desired features. It is, therefore, necessary to add custom fields and add-ons in the ERP solution. An experienced ERP consultant can handle customizations with ease and assist you to get advanced solutions.
 Expertise in Integration
These days, most businesses use multiple tools and systems to meet their diverse requirements. An ERP consultant needs to be capable of connecting existing business systems like CRM with the ERP solution.
 End-to-end Assistance
Last but not least criterion to select the right ERP consultant! Be it an SAP ERP consultant or a custom ERP consultant, they should provide comprehensive support as and when necessary. Also, they should be capable to handle training and customization.
4 Signs of a good ERP consultant
If you still have some doubts about selecting the right ERP consultant for your business, here we give four signs or indicators of a good ERP consultant.
 Identifies pitfalls in advance
An ERP consultant should be experienced to identify any pitfalls in advance so that you can avoid them with ease. Poor data cleansing, scope creep, and the like can be avoided through a proactive approach of an ERP consultant.
 Committed to giving the best
An ideal consultant believes in handling all the business needs of clients and offering a customized solution on time. In a way, they do their best in all processes like implementation and modification.
 honest advice
It is indeed the most important indicator of the right ERP consultants. They should highlight limitations and give honest advice to clients to ensure the success of customized ERP solutions over the period.
 Possesses excellent expertise
Domain expertise and experience can take ERP consultants a long way! A consultant’s experience acts as a powerful tool to ensure success in ERP implementation. Along with this, they should have adequate knowledge of market trends and the industry’s major requirements.
Why choosing Silver Touch as an ERP consultant is Beneficial?
We can mention tens of reasons to select Silver Touch as your preferred ERP consultant. Here, however, we will give only three points that set us apart from other ERP consulting and implementation service providers.
 Offer the most suitable solution
We are a reputed SAP partner with expertise in developing a customized ERP solution that can give answers to all the major questions. We assist businesses to grow while integrating add-ons and offering maintenance and other services on time.
 Gives transparent and effective services
At Silver Touch, we believe in giving our esteemed customers freedom of choice. We follow industry-standard practices in every project and ensure complete transparency in different processes.
Conclusion
ERP development and integration are complex processes that require the continuous attention of the ETP consultants. A user-friendly ERP solution can make enterprises more efficient and productive. Here, an experienced ERP client can assist you to handle all the aspects and simplify complexities through an ERP solution. At Silver Touch Technologies, we believe that choosing the right ERP consultant is a daunting yet rewarding task. You can make your project successful by finding the most suitable ERP consultant for your company and project.
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FAQs
Top ERP selection criteria include price, vendor viability, implementation considerations, risks, scalability, references, and functional suitability.
You can choose an ERP consultant who follows the best practices and who has experience in industry sectors with expertise in the specific domain.
As a reputed SAP Partner, Silver Touch Technologies is one of the best ERP consultant providers.
An ERP functional consultant is an ERP expert who can manage and implement ERP solutions with desired features and functionality for different industries.
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