Many businesses worry about the cost of hiring consultants, but the truth is that an ERP consultancy offers invaluable benefits. Experienced project managers can mitigate risks, keep the project on track, and ensure each phase is delivered on time and on budget.
The role of an ERP consultancy varies depending on the stage of your project. Here are some of the key stages where their expertise can add real value to your organisation.
Blueprint & Roadmap
Most ERP consultancies will typically start with a business analysis exercise to understand how your organisation operates. At Optimum PPS, we take that a step further by developing a detailed Blueprint. We analyse your current “As Is” processes and work with you to define your ideal “To Be” future state. This approach ensures any system you select is aligned with your goals, fit for purpose, and set up to deliver long-term value. Key stages within the Blueprint excersise include:
- Running structured workshops with cross-functional teams
Consultants engage with teams across your organisation to understand their current processes and pain points. These sessions uncover hidden inefficiencies, manual workarounds, and inconsistent practices. - Documenting your “As-Is” state
Rather than relying on assumptions or outdated Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), consultants take the time to understand your current processes in full, highlighting inefficiencies, duplications, or unnecessarily complex processes. - Designing your future “To-Be” state
Your ‘To-Be’ isn’t just about automating what you do now; it’s about designing smarter, leaner ways of working. Consultants guide you through best-practice process design, making sure it’s achievable and aligned with your organisation’s strategic goals. - Prioritising business requirements based on value
Consultants help you differentiate between ‘must-have’ vs ‘nice-to-have’ requirements using the MoSCoW methodology. This approach categorises requirements into four groups: Must-have, Should-have, Could-have, and Won’t-have. This ensures the system selection phase stays focused on value rather than being overwhelmed by features. - Aligning stakeholders and expectations
One of the most overlooked benefits of consultancy is stakeholder alignment. Consultants build consensus across departments, reducing political friction and ensuring everyone buys into the transformation journey.
This detailed blueprint and roadmap ensure that you go into system selection and implementation with clarity and confidence.
Selection: Choosing the Right ERP System for Your Organisation
During the selection phase, you will meet with vendors to see demos and evaluate their ERP systems. This stage can often make or break your project. Selecting the wrong system, or even the right system for the wrong reasons, can lead to unnecessary cost, frustration, and implementation pain.
An ERP consultancy will help you identify the best option, ensuring that the chosen system aligns with your business needs and ultimately saves you money. This involves:
- Developing a comprehensive requirements list
Consultants help you build a structured list of functional and non-functional requirements, mapped to business priorities. This ensures any system you evaluate is assessed on its ability to meet your real needs. - Designing RFPs and manages vendor engagement
Consultants prepare clear and detailed Requests for Proposals (RFPs), helping vendors understand your needs and keeping their responses focused. They also manage vendor communications and demo workshop scheduling, saving your team time and effort. - Creating tailored demo scenarios
Rather than letting vendors deliver generic sales demos, consultants work with you to produce scenario-based scripts that reflect real-life business cases. This makes it easier to compare systems on a like-for-like basis and assess how each handles your actual business processes and requirements. - System Selection scoring and workshops
Consultants bring structured evaluation frameworks to objectively assess how each solution performs. These workshops bring together key stakeholders to ensure balanced, transparent decision-making. Optimum’s structured approach, methodology and detailed weighted scoring matrix will help drive out the best-fit solution for your organisation. - Analysing total project costs
ERP pricing can be complex. Optimum’s market expertise means we can advise on pricing structures and identify areas where vendor terms might be improved. This guidance empowers organisations to assess the full scope of project costs accurately and make informed decisions during vendor evaluations.
ERP Implementation & Project Delivery
Implementation is the longest and most challenging phase of an ERP project. An ERP consultancy can manage the risks associated with switching from old systems to new ones, preventing disruptions and controlling budgets. Their expertise ensures that the project progresses smoothly, reducing stress on your team.
- Provide dedicated project management
Consultants lead the day-to-day running of the ERP project, coordinating internal teams, vendors, and third parties. They use structured methodologies like PRINCE2 to manage timelines, deliverables, and budgets. - Implement robust governance and risk controls
ERP consultancies establish RAID (Risks, Assumptions, Issues, Dependencies) logs, reporting dashboards, change control boards, and clear escalation routes. These frameworks prevent surprises and keep leadership informed. - Support business readiness and change management
Many ERP failures stem from poor user adoption. Consultants help prepare teams through communication planning, training strategies, stakeholder engagement, and feedback loops. They make change a process, not a shock. - Monitor vendor performance and hold them accountable
Vendors can sometimes overstate capabilities or underplay complexities during the sales and planning stages. Consultants track deliverables, flag missed milestones, and manage dependencies. Their independence allows them to challenge the vendor constructively without internal politics getting in the way. - Test planning and cutover support
Consultants help design and run structured testing cycles. They also develop cutover and contingency plans to ensure business continuity during go-live. This support significantly reduces the risk of go-live failure and ensures your system works as intended, with your people ready to hit the ground running.
ERP Consultancy vs In-house
One of the biggest challenges organisations face during an ERP project is simply finding the time and expertise to do it properly. Most employees already have full workloads, and asking them to take on a large-scale system change project on top of their day job is often unrealistic. Even if they’re willing, they may not have the experience needed to manage the complexity of an ERP implementation, and without that, things can easily go off track.
Partnering with an ERP consultancy like Optimum PPS helps relieve that pressure. Our consultants provide the expertise and dedicated focus that internal teams often lack. We work as an extension of your team to steer the project, manage the detail, and avoid common pitfalls that can lead to delays or increased costs. This support allows your team to stay focused on running the business while we focus on making sure the project delivers exactly what it should.
Conclusion: The Long-term Savings of ERP Consultancy
ERP projects are rarely simple. They’re ambitious by nature, cross-functional, cross-system, and deeply embedded in the way your organisation operates. And with that ambition comes risk of delays, budget overruns, user frustration, and disappointing results. The role of an ERP consultancy is not to add complexity but to remove uncertainty. They bring structure, experience, and clarity, helping you avoid the common missteps that derail so many projects.
The cost of bringing in expertise is almost always outweighed by the cost of getting it wrong. And in a landscape where ERP failures are still all too common, the reassurance of having a steady, experienced hand guiding the process can make all the difference.
At Optimum PPS, we specialise in helping organisations connect people, processes, and systems through ERP and digital transformation programmes. We’re independent, experienced, and focused on results. Our team of consultants brings hands-on delivery experience, strategic thinking, and wide sector knowledge, so you get a partner you can trust at every stage of the journey.
Get in touch today to see how we can support your team on your ERP journey.