Role & Responsibility of a Functional

Consultant
This entry was posted in General and tagged Functional Consultant on June 12, 2013 by vivek

Q. What is the role of a functional consultant in an ERP implementation project or in a

support project post go-live?
It is a very basic question which strikes the mind of many ones specially who are new to the
industry. Since all the ERP projects more or less follow the similar nature of implementation
methodologies, here the answer will cover roles & responsibilities of a functional consultant
irrespective of which technologies he/she is working on.
Role of a functional consultant in an End to End Implementation:
The functional consultant has to understand the modules they are implementing and the set up
and configuration options available, the key skill is being able to map the requirements of the
customer to the capabilities of the ERP system.

1. “A functional consultant is expected to generate knowledge about the current business

process, design current business flows, study current business processes and its complication
– in all we can say that this is getting through with the current business setup. Flow diagrams
and other relevant documents are prepared, all this forms the part of the “AS IS” document.”
2. “Everything configured has to be documented according to their categories in the form of
predefined templates; these then have to be approved by the team leads or who ever the
consultant is reporting to.”
3. “Mapping and GAP analysis is done for each module.”
4. “Before starting configuring future business processes in an ERP, the relevant documents
(name differs from one ERP system to another) are prepared, this documentation is called
“TO BE”, which can be also said as the result of mapping and gap analysis.”
5. “Sometimes Functional consultants are also expected to prepare test scripts for testing the
configured scenarios. Testing may also include Unit testing, System Integration Testing,
Exploratory Testing, Performance Testing, User Acceptance Testing, Regression Testing, or
any client specific software testing.”
6. A configuration document showing all the setting done by the consultant is also comes under
the area of role & responsibilities of consultant.
7. “End user manual and user training is also expected from Functional Consultants.”
8. There will also be interaction with other modules consultants.
9. Updation of project status to Project Manager & other concerned persons.
10. Interaction with core team members, end users & other team members (consultants).
11. A Functional consultant has to be a good communicator he has to communicate with
Customer ERP core team, implementing team, Technical consultant and his project
leader.Written communication skill is to be demonstrate by a functional consultant to e-mail
to different groups, documentation about the erp, reports generation. Verbal communication
is to understand the requirement , interact with customer, to explain and convince the
customer.

Roles of a functional consultant in a Support Project

When an ERP project goes live and end users start using the system for their real time business,
the project gets enter into the support phase. Since end users are new to the system & new
issues/challenges are highly expected, clients get into AMC (Annual maintenance contracts)
contracts. Based on the AMC terms & conditions, ERP vendors provide post live support to their
clients.

1. Primarily responsible for Handling tickets/tasks and application support to the end-users.
2. When an issue comes to diagnose, analyze and solve it.
3. Also responsible for enhancements.
4. Writing functional specifications.
5. Preparing Test Data & its testing.
6. Interaction with client/end users & updating the status.
7. Training the end users and preparing end user training material.
8. There will also be interaction with other modules consultants.
9. Creation of process documents & its updation.

Happy Learning!