ERP Consulting and Selection Services

A structured selection and business case runs 6 to 12 weeks. Requirements gathering is the longest part, usually 3 to 5 weeks, because it means sitting with finance, operations, sales and the warehouse and writing down what each of them actually does. A fit-gap workshop series against the shortlisted platforms adds another 2 to 4 weeks. Anything faster than 6 weeks is a preference, not an evaluation, and you will pay for the difference during implementation.

No. We take no licence commission, no referral fee and no reseller margin from any vendor. You pay us for the advice, which is the only way the advice stays worth having. We do implement ERPNext, Odoo and SAP, and we declare that openly at the start of every engagement. If the selection concludes that another platform or another partner fits you better, that is what the report says.

Compare total cost of ownership over the same horizon, not licence against licence. Put implementation, data migration, integration, training, hosting, annual support and your own internal staff time into both columns. Open source removes or shrinks the licence line but not the other lines, and it often shifts cost towards configuration and internal capability. A licensed platform front-loads a visible annual number and usually brings more out of the box for statutory and multi-entity work. Over three to five years the gap is far smaller than the licence quote suggests.

Run it in-house if you have someone who has done an ERP selection before, has time freed up for it, and can say no to a department head. That is a real option and we will say so. Bring in a consultant when nobody has done this before, when internal politics mean the loudest function will otherwise win, or when you need someone outside the reporting line to tell the board that the timeline is unrealistic. The consultant should be running the method, not making the decision for you.

Then we tell you that, and we tell you in writing. A good consultant has to be willing to conclude that you should not replace your ERP this year. Sometimes the real problem is three broken integrations, a reporting gap and a process nobody owns, and fixing those costs a fraction of a replacement. We would rather hand you a short remediation plan and be the people you call in two years than sell you a programme your organisation cannot absorb right now.

A documented requirements catalogue with each requirement marked essential, important or nice to have. A weighted scoring model with the criteria and weights agreed by your steering group before demos began. A scored shortlist with the evidence behind each score. A fit-gap register naming, per gap, whether you change the process, configure, extend or accept it. A readiness assessment. And a business case with a three to five year total cost of ownership model, an implementation estimate and a recommended sequence.