ERP Consultancy Is Changing

Some time ago I wrote a blog post titled “The consultant dream”. I have almost a decade of ERP experience and that blog described what kept me going. Luckily, I love change, and that’s exactly what’s happening right now. Wouldn't you think?

Written by Benny Dor, Team Texel Project Leader

The intro of that post described the actual evening, and night, that our implementation team were busy converting the data to get the customer into their new ERP solution. Beside ourselves, key users were also spending their night at the office. Living on fish and chips we’ve worked our way through the data getting to their new systems, systems that were full of new features making them ready to grow on and fight the challenges of the world. My conclusion to that blog was: well, this is what consultants live for.

However, times are changing. With Microsoft Business Central and all its backend technologies there will not be more late-night data migration sessions any more. No weeks of training or setup explanations. No risky projects asking weeks of maximum effort of your employees. Upgrades are done in a blink of an eye, on a monthly basis. Long lasting, time consuming implementation projects are part of history. Weeks of training to understand the ERP systems and all it functionality, those times are gone.

What about the consultant dream? It changed over time. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could implement customers in a short time and automatically executed updates overnight? Imagine the user locking down the office at night and when he returns for a new day at the office, new features are already available. Without any noticeable data migration, upgrade testing or go-live support. He’s fresh and well rested after a good night's sleep and ready to take on the challenges of the ever-changing world around him. With new features supporting him in chasing his business goals. And we are supporting him to achieve those goals with our experience in the food industry.

ERP consultancy is changing and that isn’t a bad thing. More than ever, the consultancy role will be about understanding the customer needs and supporting the user with helping them in their business challenges. And we're not limited to ERP only in order to support these challenges. With Business Central and Foodware 365 we can make use of PowerApps, Flow, PowerBI, CDS, Microsoft CRM and much more to maximize this support. We're moving from ERP process support to their business process support. What more can you ask for in the life on a consultant?

So the dream goes on, slightly changed, just like the world around it, bringing new chances for consultants, setting new goals for themselves as well as for companies, using a great platform that will help them to achieve their business goals. Consultants, are you ready to make it happen?