Independent counsel on whether to replace, what to choose, what to pay, and whether the investment ever returned what the business case promised.
Execution · Support · License reselling
In some specific cases like Tax technology and others we may take up implementations. Alliance led development is also possible
They fail on a business case nobody re-tested, a scope that grew quietly between signature and blueprint, a systems integrator whose incentives stopped matching the client's, or a design that automated the existing mess rather than fixing it. By the time the symptoms surface in a steering committee pack, the expensive decisions are eighteen months old.
My work sits either side of the build. Before it, I help boards decide whether an ERP replacement is genuinely the answer, which platform fits the operating reality, and what the investment must return to be worth making. During and after it, I sit on the client's side of the table — assuring the programme, holding the integrator to the contract, and testing whether the benefits the business case promised have actually landed.
Most of the enterprises I advise — process manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, metals, energy, packaging — run SAP or are deciding whether to. That has meant working across S/4HANA transitions, SuccessFactors deployments, finance function support, application management arrangements and post‑migration reviews. I am not an implementation partner and do not want to be one; the value I add depends on having no stake in the build.
Where a client's estate points elsewhere — Dynamics 365, Oracle, or a best‑of‑breed configuration — the method is unchanged. The evaluation should decide the platform, not the adviser's preference.
Whether ERP replacement is the right answer at all, what the current estate can carry, and what the organisation is capable of absorbing.
A requirement set written from process reality rather than a vendor's feature list, so evaluation compares like with like.
Structured evaluation of products and implementation partners, with scoring the steering committee can interrogate.
The number the investment must return, the assumptions under it, and the measurement that will later prove or disprove it.
Statements of work, change control, licence metrics and exit terms reviewed before signature, when they are still negotiable.
Independent assurance on the client's side, or a PMO run directly — governance, risk, and honest status reporting.
What was delivered against what was bought, where the value leaked, and what it will take to recover it.
Designing and sourcing the support arrangement that follows go-live, and holding it to its service levels.
Role design and tooling so that the control environment survives the new system, and the audit that follows it.
Eight to fourteen weeks, depending on the size of the estate. The sequence matters: each stage narrows the field on evidence rather than impression.
Applications, integrations, data, licences and cost. What exists, what it costs to run, and what is genuinely broken as opposed to merely disliked.
Process by process, with the business rather than about it. Requirements are weighted before any vendor sees them, so scoring cannot be reverse-engineered to a favourite.
Structured RFP, scripted demonstrations against the client's own scenarios rather than the vendor's, reference calls with organisations of comparable scale.
Scored on functional fit, total cost across the term, implementation risk and partner capability — presented with the workings visible.
Licence metrics, ramp, escalation, change control and exit. This is where most of the money is saved or lost.
Independent checkpoints through blueprint, build, test and cutover, reporting to the sponsor rather than the programme.
Six to twelve months after go-live, measure the business case. Where it has not landed, say so and set out the recovery.
Clients are described by sector rather than named.