How-to Guide: Strategically Staff Your ERP Implementation

APRIL 01, 2022 02:30 AM

Listen to article

Businesses that take steps toward adopting Oracle ERP Cloud or On-Premises applications, like E-Business Suite and PeopleSoft, are on the right path toward digital transformation. However, finding the right resources required to implement and maintain these complex applications can be challenging and necessitates a search beyond the resumes listed on LinkedIn and Indeed.

Often, these high-demand resources already work full-time or as consultant on various projects, meaning they do not allocate their time looking for other opportunities. Instead, Oracle consultants team up with Oracle consulting and solutions partners capable of strategically staffing projects that require their niche skills and qualifications. This blog outlines the steps companies should take to staff their ERP implementation successfully.

Step 1: Identify the Project Scope

The first step in strategically staffing your Oracle ERP Cloud implementation is to define the big picture of what you are trying to accomplish and the related scope of the project. A well-defined project scope will help determine the best skills to achieve your goal. Review the following examples:

Project Overview 1: New Oracle Cloud Applications Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Financials Management implementation.
- Scope: Financials
Project Overview 2: PeopleSoft HCM 9.2 Digital Transformation to Oracle Cloud Applications Human Capital Management (HCM)
- Scope: Human Resources Core, Benefit, Recruiting, Onboarding

Step 2: Current Staff & Gap Assessment

Next, you must assess your current staff and their skills, compare the resources available to allocate to the project, and identify any functional gaps. Additionally, you must determine any technical gaps related to report development, integration, and security, since these are known pain points for new cloud customers.

Step 3: Determine the Resource Type

Once you have identified the gaps, you must determine whether you are best served to hire a Certified Oracle Cloud Consulting Services Company, direct employees, contract consultants, or a hybrid of these options. There are pros and cons to each type of option.

Hiring a Certified Oracle Cloud Partner for Cloud Advisory Services assures you that you will have specialized resources who have experience implementing Oracle Cloud Applications many times over and often ensure success. The process requires due diligence on your part to assign resources to work with resources from the consulting company for knowledge transfer. Once the Cloud Migration Services are complete, knowledge transfer is essential to achieving self-sufficiency after implementation.
Hiring direct employees takes time and effort. Finding employees for Oracle Cloud Applications is challenging because there is a limited pool of individuals with Oracle Cloud experience. Hiring direct employees can be challenging for many other reasons. Often, the biggest obstacle is a lack of sufficient budget, which fails to meet the demands of qualified candidates, preventing us from hiring. At other times, employees cannot be onboarded quickly enough to fill the gaps before the planned projects start.
Hiring a top contract consultant is often the quickest and most cost-effective way to access top Oracle Cloud Applications expertise and fill only the existing gaps on your current team. Additionally, contract consultants, by nature, have encountered multiple client environments and various Oracle Cloud implementation issues, and can be selected based on industry-specific expertise. Contract consultants can often complete tasks more efficiently and effectively than direct employees, limited by likely exposure to only one or two companies' Oracle Cloud ecosystems.

The reasons for hiring and choosing direct candidates differ entirely from those for selecting and selecting contract consultants. In short, at minimum, direct employees must fit the company culture and be a good long-term fit for the team; they look for a career path, fair pay, benefits, stability, and vacation when deciding whether to join. As a result, hiring direct employees can take at least three months or more.

Companies hire contract consultants based on their expertise, not solely on their fit with the company culture or team. Contract consultants take on assignments because they enjoy the project and appreciate the opportunity to contribute value, then move on to another challenging project that will further advance their skills.

Step 4: Source your Oracle Talent

Once you have determined the option(s) that align best with your company philosophy and culture, you must decide how to find the needed talent.

Option 1: You could post direct hire and/or contract positions yourself, sift through the respondent's resumes, contact them, screen them, interview them, and go through the vetting process on your own; however, this requires at the very least a resource, good talent acquisition process, recruiting capabilities, technical knowledge, functional expertise, and a great deal of time.
Option 2: Another approach is to engage with a staffing company to assist you. This option will require allocating additional funds to pay placement fees for direct employees and higher contract consultant rates for best-of-breed Oracle Cloud Professionals.

When you are determined to engage a consulting services company, you must determine which companies best serve your needs. Not all Consulting Services companies are created equal. The first consideration is whether to work with a generalized staffing company that will address all your needs, whether they are direct, contract-to-direct, or contract-based.

Many companies attempt to be all things to all people, working in various roles, from administrative assistants to executive positions, with no particular focus on whether they are technical or non-technical. Other companies specialize in information technology but lack a specific focus on the expertise level or a particular technology vendor. While these companies will be happy to assist you in filling your roles, a lot of time can be wasted when a staffing company does not focus on the same technology daily. Then there are pure-play Oracle Cloud Consulting Companies that only focus on Oracle Cloud Talent.

Choose the Best Option for YOU

Select a Staffing company specializing in Information Technology and Direct Placement services to assist you with hiring full-time employees. They will best serve you based on their understanding of the longer direct placement process, the nuances of why you select people, and why they choose you as a company. Avoid companies that are too general and will work on anything you give them.

Select a pure-play Oracle Cloud specialized staffing company or Oracle Cloud Implementation partner who offers their employees on an individual contract consulting basis for your Oracle Cloud Consultant's needs. A specialized Oracle Cloud company will have the functional and technical expertise required to fully understand your needs and qualify the consultant for your project. They will also have a pre-built network of top Oracle Cloud consultants they have worked with. Since consultants are responsible for taking temporary project assignments, their availability is recurring. A specialized Oracle Cloud consultancy will have a catalog of these individuals they draw on for their clients, knowing when they are completing their projects, are available for hire, and have an intimate understanding of their skills and how they fit your project.

FAQs

What are the main options for acquiring the resources needed for an ERP implementation, and what are the pros and cons of each?
There are generally three options: hiring a certified Oracle Cloud Consulting Services company, hiring direct employees, and hiring contract consultants.

Certified Oracle Cloud Partner: This option provides specialized resources with extensive experience in Oracle Cloud implementations, increasing the likelihood of success; however, it requires knowledge transfer to your internal resources for self-sufficiency.
Direct Employees: Hiring direct employees enables long-term team integration, but it can be challenging due to a limited pool of candidates with Oracle Cloud experience, lengthy hiring processes (often exceeding three months), and budget constraints.
Contract Consultants: This option provides quick access to top Oracle Cloud expertise and can be cost-effective, particularly when filling specific gaps in your existing team. Contract consultants often have diverse experience from working in multiple client environments.

What are the key differences between hiring a direct employee versus hiring a contract consultant for an Oracle Cloud project?
Direct employees are hired based on factors beyond expertise, such as their fit with company culture, career aspirations, and long-term benefits. They also require a longer hiring process. On the other hand, contract consultants are selected primarily for their specific expertise, ability to deliver, project fit, and desire to move between projects, rather than for cultural fit or benefits packages. They also offer a way to access specific skills rapidly.
If choosing to use a staffing company, what kind of company is best for finding Oracle Cloud talent?
It is generally recommended to use a staffing company specializing in information technology and direct placement services for full-time hires or a pure-play Oracle Cloud specialist company (or an Oracle Cloud implementation partner) for contract consultants. Avoid general staffing companies that do not specialize in technology or even those that work in IT but do not focus specifically on Oracle Cloud. A specialized firm will possess in-depth knowledge of the skills required for Oracle Cloud roles and a pre-built network of available talent.
What advantages does a pure-play Oracle Cloud specialized staffing company offer over a more general staffing agency?
A pure-play Oracle Cloud specialized staffing company has functional and technical expertise within the Oracle Cloud ecosystem. This specialization enables them to understand your project needs fully, qualify candidates more effectively, and provide access to a pre-existing network of consultants. They also better understand the consultant's project history and recurring availability than a generalized staffing company.
What is SMACT Works, and what are their areas of expertise?
SMACT Works is a technology-focused systems integrator and IT/ERP consulting firm. They specialize in delivering end-to-end consulting, managed, and implementation services for Oracle Cloud Applications (including ERP, HCM, EPM, SCM, Student, and CX), IaaS and PaaS, as well as on-premises PeopleSoft and EBS applications. They also focus on related areas, such as Oracle Analytics and BI, and database managements & BI and database management.

If you're looking to work with a pure-play Oracle Cloud implementation partner, contact us to get started.

About SMACT Works

SMACT Works is a technology-focused systems integrator and IT/ERP consulting firm. We deliver end-to-end consulting, managed, and implementation services for Oracle Cloud Applications, IaaS & PaaS, On-Premise PeopleSoft & EBS Applications. Headquartered in Dublin, OH, we have a global presence with North America and Asia offices. We are an Oracle Gold Partner Cloud Standard, ISO 9001, and 27001 certified delivery organization serving customers with Excellence and Integrity.