ERP Selection Advisors

ERP selection advisors (in German Auswahlbegleiter) are independent consultancies that support buyers through the ERP procurement process without being tied to a specific vendor. Their value is structural neutrality: they are paid by the buyer, not by the eventual implementation partner, and their methodology is built around clarifying requirements before vendors are invited to bid. For German Mid-Market organisations evaluating an ERP investment that may bind operations for the next decade, an experienced selection advisor often pays for itself by shortening the evaluation cycle and improving fit between the chosen product and the actual process landscape.

What selection advisors do

A typical selection engagement spans three to six months and covers requirements analysis, market scoping, structured RfI/RfP, scripted demo days, reference checks and contract review. The advisor acts as a translator between the operational side of the business — finance, production, logistics, sales — and the vendor sales teams. Deliverables usually include a documented process catalogue, a weighted requirements matrix and a comparative scoring of two to four finalists. Established DACH-focused advisors such as Trovarit, Schwetz Consulting and the ERP arm of BARC publish methodology that has matured over many comparable engagements.

Difference from implementation partners

An implementation partner — for example a Microsoft Dynamics or SAP partner — earns its revenue from configuring and rolling out a specific product. That is a legitimate role, but it cannot also be a vendor-neutral selector. Genuine selection advisors do not take referral fees from ERP vendors, do not maintain implementation practices for any single product family, and publish their compensation model. When evaluating an advisor, the relevant question is not how many ERP products they know but how clearly they document conflict-of-interest boundaries.

When external selection support pays off

External selection support is most valuable when internal IT lacks recent ERP-procurement experience, when the project crosses several business units with conflicting priorities, or when the budget bracket exceeds roughly half a million euro of total cost of ownership. For smaller projects with a clear-cut process landscape, internal selection with a structured RfI template is often sufficient. The Mid-Market-typical pattern is one full-time internal project lead supported by an advisor for three to six person-months across the engagement.

Criteria for choosing an advisor

Useful criteria when shortlisting a selection advisor: published methodology with named phases and deliverables; written conflict-of-interest policy; sector experience in your industry; references from completed selections in the last three years; and a fixed-price or capped-hours commercial model rather than open-ended time-and-materials. Avoid advisors who present a preferred shortlist before the requirements workshop is complete — that pattern indicates a pre-existing partner relationship behind the scenes.

Established DACH advisors and their focus

The German-speaking selection-advisor market is concentrated around a handful of established firms with distinct profiles. Trovarit, an Aachen-based spin-off of the RWTH research environment, is best known for its annual ERP in der Praxis user-satisfaction study and a structured selection methodology widely used in industrial Mid-Market projects. Schwetz Consulting in Karlsruhe has a long-standing focus on small and mid-market manufacturing buyers with a pragmatic, low-overhead selection process. BARC (Business Application Research Center) is principally a research and analyst firm but also runs vendor-neutral selection projects in the BI and ERP space. Beyond these, regional consultancies and individual practitioners cover specific industries; the relevant question is always neutrality and methodology rather than name recognition.

Industry and company-size focus

Most DACH selection advisors specialise by industry or by company size rather than by ERP product. The clearest segmentation is between discrete manufacturing, process industry, project-driven services and wholesale or retail trading. Industry-specific advisors bring pre-built process reference catalogues (typical demand-planning flows for series manufacturing, batch and recipe management for food and chemicals, project-time recording for engineering services) that materially shorten the requirements phase. By revenue band, selection support is most common between roughly 20 million and 500 million euro of customer turnover; below that, internal selection is often sufficient, and above that, in-house procurement teams typically run the process with advisors playing a more limited subject-matter role.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is an ERP selection advisor compensated?

Reputable advisors are paid exclusively by the buyer, either as a fixed-price engagement or as capped time-and-materials. They should disclose in writing whether they receive any commissions, referral fees or kickbacks from ERP vendors or implementation partners. The standard answer in a clean engagement is none.

How long does an ERP selection engagement typically run?

For a German Mittelstand company between roughly 100 and 500 employees, an end-to-end selection from requirements workshop to signed contract usually takes three to six months. Larger or multi-site organisations can run nine to twelve months. The actual implementation begins after that.

Can the same advisor also run the implementation?

Generally no. The independence that made the advisor valuable during selection is lost the moment they also bid for the implementation. Some firms split the work explicitly: a selection team that exits at contract signature, and a separate implementation team for the chosen product. That construction is acceptable if the commercial separation is clear in writing.

Is selection support also useful for cloud ERP?

Yes. Cloud ERP changes the licensing model but not the requirements-discovery problem. Misfit between cloud-ERP standard processes and the customer's actual workflow is a frequent cause of post-go-live dissatisfaction, and a structured selection process reduces that risk for cloud as much as for on-premises products.

What does an ERP selection engagement typically cost?

Fees for a structured DACH Mittelstand selection engagement typically range from 40,000 to 150,000 euro depending on company size, the number of business units involved and the depth of the requirements analysis. As a rough orientation, selection costs are usually one to three per cent of the projected total cost of ownership of the chosen ERP, which makes them a low-risk insurance premium on a much larger commitment.

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