Solution Architect

Many businesses have embarked on rolling out new IT solutions department by department basis with little to no review of how they could and should link together. Big ticket items such as ERP systems often fail to provide the benefits hoped for or never deliver a return on the investment promised by the sales representative.

Occasionally the integration partner will send in the ‘B’ team who have limited knowledge of business and rely heavily on the experiences from their last deployment. The role of the solution architect is to map out the entire supply chain, look at data flows and the integrations already in place and seek the gaps / opportunities.

The simple review of the business processes in place today can often reveal gaps, manual actions that can be streamlined and deliver unseen benefits. After the initial review the ‘to be’ solution needs to be fully understood and a project plan agreed for the roll out across the whole business.
Bringing in the external expert can appear expensive or may have a negative impact on the internal team; however, if you find someone who can bring in the experience of past success this can pay a dividend once the new systems / tools are fully deployed. Having been involved in several large-scale ERP deployments we have seen the mistakes and managed projects that have delivered business benefits through collaboration with all aspects of the supply chain including the external network.