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Technology Consulting

ERP and CRM selection with a business case

We turn your requirements into a fit-gap register for each shortlisted platform, compare the full cost of ownership, and give you a written recommendation, including "keep what you have" when that is the honest answer.

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Who it is for

Finance and operations leaders choosing a system who want advice from someone with no vendor quota.

Duration
2–4 weeks
Price
Agreed in writing before we start
You receive
5 written deliverables
Can lead to
Platform implementation

The situation

Choose between Odoo, Zoho, Dynamics, Salesforce or custom, on evidence

Every vendor demo looks good. The differences only show up after you have signed: the customization you cannot make, the per-user cost at twice your size, the module that needs a second product.

What you get

  • Requirements list written in your own operational language
  • Fit-gap register for each shortlisted platform: fit, configure or gap
  • Cost-of-ownership comparison covering licenses, implementation and running costs
  • Written recommendation with the reasons, and who each option is not right for
  • The questions to put to each vendor before you sign

What we need from you

  • Two-hour interviews with each department lead
  • Sign-off on the requirements list before we compare platforms
  • Willingness to change a process where the standard one is better

If you go ahead

How the follow-on work runs

This engagement covers the first stages of the plan below. You decide whether to continue once you have the deliverables.

We sit with the people doing the work and map how orders, stock and money actually move today, including the spreadsheets nobody mentions in the first meeting.

What happens

  • Process walk-throughs with key users
  • Inventory of every data source
  • Quantifying where time is lost

What you get

  • Current-state process map
  • Data source and quality audit
  • Scope baseline

What we need from you

  • Sample invoices, orders and spreadsheets
  • Two-hour interviews with each department lead

Risk handled

Critical spreadsheets that management does not know staff rely on.

We walk every requirement against the platform's standard features and mark each one as fit, configure, or gap. Standard wins by default because it upgrades cleanly.

Gate: Custom development only where standard cannot fit.

What happens

  • Requirement-by-requirement fit-gap review
  • Standard-process demos to your team
  • Gap costing

What you get

  • Fit-gap register
  • Costed list of justified customisations

What we need from you

  • Willingness to change a process where the standard one is better
  • Sign-off on the gap list

Risk handled

Customizations that break on the next platform upgrade.

We provision environments, configure the standard modules to the blueprint, and build any approved extensions.

What happens

  • Environment setup and hardening
  • Module configuration
  • Approved custom development

What you get

  • Working staging environment
  • Configured modules matching the blueprint

What we need from you

  • Tax settings, bank details and branding assets
  • Named admin users

Risk handled

Configuration drifting away from what was agreed in the blueprint.

We extract customers, vendors, products and balances from your current tools, remove duplicates and load trial datasets you can check.

What happens

  • Migration scripts
  • Duplicate detection
  • Trial balance reconciliation

What you get

  • Staging database loaded with cleaned data
  • Reconciliation sheet

What we need from you

  • Decisions on flagged duplicates
  • Lists of inactive products and customers to archive

Risk handled

Bad legacy data being carried into the new system on day one.

We connect the system to the tools that stay: banks, e-commerce stores, payroll, shipping and anything else agreed in the blueprint.

What happens

  • API and webhook connectors
  • Error handling and retries
  • End-to-end integration tests

What you get

  • Tested integrations in staging
  • Integration runbook

What we need from you

  • API credentials and vendor contacts for connected systems

Risk handled

Silent sync failures that nobody notices until month-end.

Your staff test real scenarios in staging and learn the system role by role, with recorded guides they can return to.

What happens

  • Role-based training sessions
  • Scenario testing
  • Fix sprints on UAT findings

What you get

  • Signed UAT test matrix
  • Recorded training library

What we need from you

  • Key users available about four hours a week for testing

Risk handled

Staff meeting the system for the first time on go-live day.

We freeze the old system, move the final changes across, verify opening balances and switch over, usually across a weekend.

What happens

  • Final delta migration
  • Opening balance verification
  • Hardware and scanner checks

What you get

  • Live production system
  • Signed cutover checklist

What we need from you

  • A data-entry freeze on the old system at an agreed time

Risk handled

Downtime during trading hours.

The team that built the system stays on it after go-live: fixing issues on the day they surface, adjusting screens staff struggle with, and sitting with finance through the first month-end close.

What happens

  • Daily check-in with your project lead
  • Same-day fixes and small adjustments
  • First month-end close support

What you get

  • Hypercare issue log with resolutions
  • First month-end close sign-off

What we need from you

  • A 15-minute daily call with your project lead
  • Staff reporting problems as they happen, not at the end of the week

Risk handled

Early friction pushing staff back to the old spreadsheets.

With clean data in one system, we automate the repetitive work around it: invoice capture, reorder drafts, approval routing and alerts.

What happens

  • Automation opportunity review
  • Workflow and agent build
  • Monitoring and tuning

What you get

  • Live automation workflows
  • Monthly report of hours recovered

What we need from you

  • A ranked list of the bottlenecks you want gone next

Risk handled

The new system settling into a passive record-keeping tool.

More about platform implementation

Platform Selection & Business Case

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Client work

Engagements where we did this

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FAQ

Questions about this offer

Answered plainly, before you ask.

Ask us directly
Do you earn commission from the platforms you recommend?

Ask us on the first call and we will put our commercial relationship with each vendor in writing before you decide.

Can the answer be a custom build?

Yes, when your process is the thing that sets you apart and no platform fits it without heavy customization. We show the trade-off in cost and upkeep either way.

Other ways to start

Not quite the right question?

Operations & Systems Diagnostic Find out what is really slowing the operation down Owners and operations heads who know something is broken but not which fix comes first. 1–2 weeks See the offer Digital Transformation Roadmap A sequenced plan for the next 12 to 24 months of systems work Leadership teams planning several system changes who need the order, the budget bands and the risks on one page. Agreed on the first call See the offer Implementation Health Check & Rescue An independent view of an ERP or CRM project that is going wrong Companies whose implementation, with any vendor, is late, over budget or losing the trust of the people who must use it. Agreed on the first call See the offer

See all six offers