Rules for Success as an Independent Consultant: Industry Tips from Gerrit Pruis, Managing Director, SAP Solutions at B2Bworkforce One of the great accomplishments in the consulting field is becoming a successful independent consultant. In terms of hands-on ERP roles, an independent consultant is the pinnacle of achievement because you have achieved a level of skill that allows you to be perceived as a true "value-added" expert on ERP projects. Being an independent consultant is not easy. You are responsible for your own marketing, billing, and career development. It's not easy to know what to be trained on when you consider the vast array of products in today's enterprise application suites. In addition, you will be expected to be the "subject matter expert" (SME) for your aspect of the project, and you may find yourself without as much support as the full-time consultants and end user employees working alongside you. B2B Workforce is changing that paradigm by providing its independent consultants with ongoing project support. Our Premier Partner relationship with SAP America provides us with a full suite of SAP systems running in our SAP Solutions Center. We can also get our consultants access to advanced certification classes - we trained 14 consultants in 2007 on NetWeaver 7.0 upgrades. And we do all this while keeping our consultants independent and able to make their own project choices. But even with strong field support, anyone who wants to succeed as an independent consultant needs to have a well-thought career plan. B2B Workforce has always thought of itself as career advisors to independent consultants, and we do our best to align the best projects with the career paths of the independent consultants we work with. For this edition of the newsletter, we sat down with Gerrit Pruis, the Managing Director of SAP Solutions at B2B Workforce, and asked him to share his "rules for success" as an independent consultant. With seventeen years of R/2 experience and thirteen years of R/3, Gerrit has compiled his rules from more implementations than most of us will ever see. Rule #1: Understand the Market Conditions. To succeed as an independent consultant, you need access to a steady stream of consulting positions. B2B Workforce is committed to putting quality projects in front of you. Our Candidate Alerts program sends you targeted emails in your area of IT specialization, and our monthly newsletter keeps you in the loop on where our practice is going. We also address IT spending trends in some of our consultant features. That's because IT spending is important to the overall health of the ERP consulting market. Despite some signs of economic slowdown, Gerrit is optimistic about IT spending. The reason? "Information Technology is now perceived as a key to competitive advantage and not just a cost center. This, in turn, fuels investment in ERP systems," says Pruis. Gerrit sees IT spending holding steady with a larger upturn later in 2008, but as an independent, you should pay attention to IT spending trends, as they affect your livelihood. The greatest cost of any IT investment is not the hardware, software or service contracts, but the staff expenses for resources needed to develop applications and manage and support these assets. In fact, more than 70 percent of total IT spending is spent on internal labor. Rule #2: Map out Your Business Model. As you enter the market as an independent consultant, you need to know how you fit into the ERP staffing model. "There are few opportunities for an independent consultant to bill directly to an end client," says Pruis. "Typically, there is always a middle man of some kind to serve as the vendor of record." B2B Workforce serves as a vendor of record for hundreds of ERP consultants. This means everything from handling receivables (paying you while we wait for clients to pay for your project hours) to supporting you throughout the placement and project cycle. One of the biggest benefits of having a third party such as B2B between you and the client is rate negotiation! Just like athletes benefit from having agents represent them, B2B can serve as your agent to help you leverage your best rate without putting you in a sensitive discussion with the client. As you navigate the market as independent consultant, you need to have trusted relationships with firms like B2B Workforce that can represent your interests and project priorities. "In a sense, while you are an independent consultant, you are never truly independent," says Pruis. "The ERP market is really an interdependent network - the key is forming the right partnerships." Rule #3: Find a Niche and Become an Expert. "There is now a good supply of experienced ERP consultants including SAP, which gives employers a choice over who they want to hire," says Pruis. "It's not enough to have SAP skills, you need to find a niche and excel in that area." As you become a subject market expert in a marketable area, doors open. "This simple truth is that experts can charge more than non-experts," says Pruis. "Experts get called in for the most exciting projects. If you excel in how to use your knowledge to address the needs of your clients, you will be compensated accordingly." Rule #4: Use Product Knowledge to Choose The Right Projects. "It's important to study up on your ERP product line of interest and then choose projects that keep your skills on the cutting edge," says Pruis. In Gerrit's experience, the consultants who focus on skills as their top priority and rate as their next consideration fare better than those who do the reverse. Rule #5: Position Yourself with Project References. "In a competitive market, your project references need to be stellar," says Pruis. Independent consultants need to be skilled in self-promotion, and there's no better way to promote yourself than through written testimonials from customers you had an impact on. Testimonials from peers can be helpful also. In Gerrit's experience, the consultants who present hiring managers with the phone numbers of "blue chip" client references have an edge in the market. Client references are an integral part of B2B's own placement process. When B2B Workforce proposes you to one of our clients, we always verify and include your project references as part of that submittal. Current references are so crucial to the hire that our Resource Managers will work with consultants to update their references as needed. B2B uses a well-tested reference template to ensure that all references taken are effective and help to get you onto the best projects. So compile those references! Rule #6: Always Put Your Client First. "One of the biggest mistakes is being too prescriptive and not focusing on the needs of the client," says Pruis. "You should think inside the box instead of outside of the box. Put the client first! Listen to what the client's needs are, and then adapt your experience to the problem at hand, rather than imposing your own agenda on the client." Gerrit points out that all IT clients are looking for ROI, and that return on investment cannot be achieved unless you take a close look at that client's particular circumstances. Years of ERP experience is mostly a good thing, but Gerrit warns that it can become a liability if it causes you to assume you know the answer from day one instead of listening to the client. Rule #7: Know Your Limits. "The biggest error independent consultants make is not knowing their limits," says Gerrit. "You have to know which pieces of your skill set are relevant and which are deficient. You have to be willing to say 'I don't know' and then help to find the solution. Don't try to be a project superhero - clients don't want that." It pays off to call on more experienced team members when you get stuck, or go out and find the answer on an SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft or other ERP discussion forum. B2B Workforce consultants also have a great deal of internal support to draw on in these situations. Any of our 300 on-site SAP consultants can call into our SAP Solution Center and schedule a time to speak with one of our SAP Architects who can help troubleshoot and assist with the client's requests. It might seem awkward to say "I don't know" to a client, but Gerrit reminds us that no one knows everything about SAP, and clients want a problem-solver, not a know-it-all. "Overconfidence can really hurt you," says Pruis. "A better approach is to treat the client as a true business partner." Rule #8: Identify Your Skills Gaps and Fill Them. "Take note of the things you are not good at, and make a point of filling those skills gaps," says Pruis. Every consultant has areas of strength and areas where they need to grow. The differentiator between a good consultant and a great one is not the level of current knowledge, but the level of commitment to self-education. Rule #9: Use Online Forums to Build Your Network and Expand Your Knowledge. There are more sources of online ERP information than ever before. In the case of SAP, there are great discussion forums on sites such as SAPfans.com (www.sapfans.com). SAP's own SAP Developer Network (sdn.sap.com) and Business Process Expert community (bpx.sap.com) are two other great places to discuss issues and get questions answered in areas where you might be deficient. In many of these forums, you can remain anonymous until you are comfortable posting your own contributions. Over time, you can build a valuable business network that will help you to get your questions answered when you are in a pinch. Gerrit also likes the resources available on ERPGenie (www.erpgenie.com) and SAPtips (www.SAPtips.com). Of course, beyond the online forums, there are numerous conferences and in-person networking opportunities that can expand your knowledge and contact base, which for SAP includes ASUG, SAPPHIRE, and the SAP Insider "Expert" series. Success as an independent consultant doesn't happen overnight. But with Gerrit's "rules for success" as a roadmap, you should find yourself heading in the right direction. Gerrit Pruis is the Managing Director - SAP Solutions at B2B Workforce, an SAP Premier Service Partner. Gerrit has spent twenty five years in the SAP field, with eight years of project management level. He has extensive experience in SAP NetWeaver and eSOA assessments, and deep functional skills in most SAP modules, including FI, CO, SD, MM, PP, and PS. Gerrit lives in Boca Raton with his wife Barbara and 2 daughters, Tanya and Bianca. Gerrit is a keen rugby follower and played the game for 15 years. He also is a music lover, over the past 20 years involved in writing and playing music in the old rock styles like Lynyrd Skynyrd, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath to name some. On occasions you can find him in South Florida playing music (Drums and Keyboards) in some of the beach clubs.