Typically ERP implementations can be done with the proper coordination of business owners, project managers, functional consultants and technical consultants. We can say functional consultants and technical consultants are life blood for ERP implementations because with out these guys, it is too challenging to deliver the good results. The ERP vendor should definitely keep both the technical and functional consultants to finish the implementation quickly.
Go through some of the details what exactly a functional consultant and technical consultant do...
Functional ERP consultants will act as the great mediator in the implementation process. He takes care of entire communication needs between the core teams of the ERP implementation. The critical role of the functional consultant would be requirement gathering. He is the person who maps the requirements of the customer and suggests the solution according to the requirement. This is what his role in the pre implementation process. Suggesting the solution, make customer comfortable with the solution is the most important phase in the pre implementation stage. He will go ahead and test the solution at the customer environment to know if any customization needed for the application. Preparing a document regarding requirements and suggested solution and presenting to the top management of both customer side and vendor side is also a biggest task. Later on, he gets the feedback on the document from both the sides and does the GAP analysis.
In the process of ERP implementation, the entire responsibility of coordination will be handled by the functional consultant. He should constantly interact with project manager, module consultants and technical consultants for smooth progress of the implementation. He regularly needs to update the project progress to the project manager and ask for any suggestions if required.
Technical consultant role is entirely different from the functional consultant. His takes care of the entire customization work. He always works with the coding and programming only. We can call him as a developer. Technical ERP consultant is well versed and equipped with the latest technologies in the programming. He can understand the technical errors and bugs in the system. He takes care of the modification of the application according to the customer requirement. The job mostly involved in coding and programming of the application. He may not enter into the picture before implementation but he will be active in the implementation part most of the times. He may not be interacting with the customer directly but must update the progress of the customization to the functional consultant and project manager.
Both the functional consultant and technical consultant are very important for the implementation. If one is not there, the work will be delayed for sure. Both have got their own key responsibilities on their own way. One has to lead the front end and other should support from the back end.
So, ERP implementation is the process where in the entire core team has to be coordinated properly for the completion of the project on time. If there is no coordination, the project definitely gets delayed.
