Acumatica ERP helps businesses all over the world to automate and simplify processes. The main benefit is a customization feature that allows to adapt the whole system to your specific business. The best way to do that is hiring someone who has already knowledge and skills. That’s why companies look for an experienced team to deal with aligning Acumatica ERP with their business.
What is the noise about?
There is no one size fits all solution for each business. In some cases, you need to change your business procedures to make use of ERP systems. Sometimes, you have to order completely different software to fulfill your business needs. The most tricky situation appears when your company deals with new challenges as business changes and grows. So, flexible ERP solution may accommodate your requirements.
There are a few ways how Acumatica ERP may be customized. First of all, third-party programmers can extend the functionality according to the specific business requirements.
The second way is Acumatica’s partners and value-added resellers. They may provide deep consulting as well as development services for various businesses related to Acumatica. Now, let’s explore these solutions.
What resellers and outstaffing companies can bring to the table?
As we mentioned before, when companies need a customized way to use an ERP system, they may cooperate with third-party companies to overcome their challenges. We’ve prepared a short comparison for you with the pros and cons of each option.
#1 Reseller
Pros
- Resellers are partners that are aimed to support the entire ERP suite platform. They may add extra features or services to the platform according to the unique business needs.
- The reseller program brings the customers industry editions and ERP modules such as online accounting functionality, manufacturing management, construction, and commerce edition, etc.
- A reseller can help their clients to save money and improve productivity. For example, resellers will show large organizations how to use the most valuable for them capabilities and automate business processes.
- Usually, resellers offer some training for the buyers.
Cons
- This solution can be overpriced.
- Lots of customization options and features make the implementation too complex.
- Such cooperation with a reseller may be time-consuming.
#2 Freelance team
Pros
- It can be a good option when your company is placed in a place with little to no access to the needed labor force or time of the qualified developers cost too much.
- Some small and young businesses hire a freelance team to decrease costs.
Cons
- It’s difficult to check and monitor a freelancer’s work time and deadline.
- Communication problems.
- They can disappear and don’t finish their work.
#3 Outsource/outstaffing company
Pros
- It brings simplicity. ERP software involves many benefits with great performance and enhanced connectivity. The new functions grow far beyond basic back-office features. That’s why many companies do not have the experience and expertise to implement it correctly and not to fail to adjust technology with the whole business strategy. The outstaffing team will customize your software tools and strategy.
- The companies don’t need to overload their staff with the need to deal with complex ERP software system.
- The outsourcing company has a systematic approach to implementing ERP systems and have perfected the entire strategy through many cases.
- Bringing in outstaffing team helps to add global expertise to decrease the possible risks.
Cons
- When you decide to delegate customization of Acumatica ERP to the outsource team, there is only one challenge: how to find a good tech partner. Sometimes, companies stuck to detect a good one or have a bad experience dealing with scammers. Below, we will help you to gain a whole vision to successfully outsource this task.
How to find the most suitable outsourcing team?
On the one hand, outsourcing/outstaffing company is not only the most popular option but the most valuable. On the other hand, it can be risky: sometimes, a team doesn’t figure out the code in the old functions and the new functionality starts conflicting with the previous one. It means time and money loss. Also, when the outsourcing company doesn’t have the employee with needed skills, they can delegate the task to the contractor. This partner usually hasn’t the motivation to explore the project and the number of fixes grows. Moreover, the contractor can delay the work because of the lack of the employees.
That’s why we’ve prepared for you some key questions to find out reliable tech partners without fraud and money loss.
- What is the specialization of the company?
This is a huge advantage if the company does not only provide software development but is focused on Acumatica ERP. For example, FiduciaSoft is Acumatica software vendor that helps with integration and customization. Moreover, you can order consulting and support related to Acumatica ERP.
FiduciaSoft has deep expertise in ERP integrations with various marketplaces and e-commerce platforms, etc. Besides, customers may order the extension of Acumatica ERP functionality to the mobile platforms. Actually, the number of possible options are bigger and everything depends on your business needs.
- What is the number of developers in a team and what experience do they have?
This is a fact that a cohesive team of good IT professionals will make a difference and help to eliminate the problems and risks. The employees are the most valuable asset, so if your tech partner has this vision and gathers talented professionals – you’re lucky.
If talking about the number of developers that is compulsory – it’s all about the size of your project or company. Obviously, if you have a large business – three professionals will not be enough. If you run a small startup and the outsource company offers you 20 developers, it’s time to think about its honesty.
- Will you have the ability to talk with the team members directly?
Transparency is very important nowadays and helps to build trust between two parties of cooperation. So, if you see that the outsource team hides its members, avoid such collaboration. There are many reasons why they can do that: they don’t have a team; their people don’t speak English or have a lack of technical skills; they don’t care about their reputation and importance to make the experience smooth.
- What use cases do they have?
Their portfolio will show you their expertise and experience, areas of the business they can deal with and types of projects they had.
- Does the team have the relevant certification?
Your experience hiring outsourcing team will be much better with officially certified Acumatica developers, consultants, implementation project managers.
It is worth to mention that FiduciaSoft has all of the mentioned benefits and can offer you a team of qualified developers. We value people and do everything to grow the best team and serve our customers better!
How to make your cooperation with the outsource team successful
- Prepare a risk control
Keep in mind that risks related to IT outsourcing are huge. Lack of business knowledge from the outsource partner and cultural differences, and weak communication channels will increase your chances to fail. Experienced PMs and CEOs that are aware of the risks integrate techniques to decrease them.
Besides, it’s important to work on the risk mitigation through the entire development cycle, add valuable updates to the strategy, prepare well-documented requirements, etc. The good mix of the necessary daily risk analysis are key to a successful partnership.
The experienced outsource team knows that the basic is shared vision and permanent control. That’s why they will set as many meetings as you need to discuss your specific business demands. Then, they will offer you a clear system with weekly updates about the progress and an ability to check any need to change the sprint.
Customization of Acumatica ERP requires those efforts as well as understanding from you that the more open you will be for the honest report, the less risk you will get. That’s why, spend your time for transparent and friendly partnership.
- Adjust technology with the business strategy
The next point is how to put your technology without a negative influence on the business processes. Digital transformation is important but what works well for one company can be a disaster for another one. Your technology execution has to be aligned with your business. It means that every aspect of your specific company is fully integrated into the strategy. Moreover, an alignment with your target market’s needs is especially important.
Keeping your eyes on the organization’s goals, its business model and stakeholder needs, will ensure that technology execution and business execution is fully synced.
- Set good communication
As we mentioned before, communication with your outsourcing partner is one of the key factors. Without an experienced leader, your outstaffing team will struggle to achieve the necessary customization of Acumatica ERP.
Here are the indicators that something went apart and you need to improve the communications:
- inability to articulate the value of IT initiatives;
- resources are duplicated or overlap with each other;
- your projects often fail or are abandoned;
- projects fail due to foreseeable risks not being properly managed;
- the relationship between key stakeholders lacks mutual trust.
It is likely that if your company has a few problems from the list, you must prepare a roadmap for corrective actions. First of all, choose at least one person from your in-house team to be responsible for the cooperation with outsourcing company.
Setting up a reliable communication process with the outsource team is a crucial aspect of effective day-to-day operations. That’s why you need to build a three-level communication model to lead the entire working process. This model involves:
- operational level (day-to-day communication between the developers regarding current project issues);
- managerial level (communication between managers about statuses and planning, process organization, possible risks, etc.
- strategic level (clear communication between executives).
This model helps to speed up the processes between two parties of the collaboration. Besides, it involves a necessary escalation mechanism. If needed, the developers will raise an issue to their managers, managers will try to deal with it or discuss the issues with the executives.
Let’s sum up. Despite all possible risks and setbacks, delegating the customization of Acumatica ERP to the outsource partner is worth it. You get a huge number of advantages and support from the certified and highly experienced professionals. With them, you don’t need to spend a lot of time on this issue.
Their portfolio, as well as testimonials from previous customers, will help you to trust them and stop worrying about future results. Moreover, clear and open communication with an ability to talk directly with each team member, weekly updates will make the risk impossible.