ERP consultant is the most preferred person in the ERP application implementation process. Actually, he is the person who takes care of the end to end activities involved in the implementation process. As everybody knows, ERP is the most desired software application for most of the manufacturing companies to streamline their internal communication. Once the Enterprise Resource Planning application is implemented, the entire working process of the company will be changed accordingly.
The implementation process is been such a crucial part in the entire process because, if the implementation fails, the operation structure of the company will be affected. So, companies will thoroughly evaluate vendors before zero in on the final order. If the vendor does not have the expertise in the implementation process and still proceed with the implementation, the chances of failure would be high.
If a consultant is given such a huge priority, we will be obviously fascinated to know more about what exactly the functional ERP consultant does. This writing will give you some brief notes on the key responsibility areas of the functional consultant.
The first and foremost thing; understand the customer requirements such as current business process of the system and work flow of the operations. Once the requirements of the customer are fully understood by the consultant, than he goes ahead and suggest the best solution for the requirement. The next thing would be giving the proof of concept to the customer to make them comfortable with the product or any given solution.
Before implementation, it is the responsibility of the functional consultant to design a document with the details of the customer requirements and how the solution is going to be implemented. This document is revised by the customer and project heads and suggest solutions to bridge the loopholes in the document. With the help of this feedback, the functional consultant will design the perfect document where in each and every step of the implementation mentioned clearly. This is called GAP analysis.
This is where the project will be commenced. The functional ERP consultant will be constantly interacting with the each of the module consultants and update the project progress report to the project manager. A functional consultant should be a good communicator who can understand the pain points of the module consultants and shares information with the core Enterprise Resource Planning team such as technical consultant for any customization. The other most important functional consultant responsibility is to prepare the end user manual and the training guide for the users. The role of a functional consultant will be closed by giving training to the customer core team at the customer side and make them familiar with the application usage.
Ultimately, it is the functional consultant who is the backbone of the ERP implementation and looks after the entire process of implementation. A project may not be succeeded without an experienced functional consultant most of the times. He plays a crucial role in the success of the implementation and may be responsible of the failure of the same.
