Sage 100cloud Consulting
Through our network of consultants we have access to experts in some of the more advanced areas of MAS90 and MAS200.
With over 70 members our 90 Minds Consulting offers a diverse pool of experience to answer your toughest MAS90 or MAS200 technical requests.
We’ve converted our project billing from hourly to fixed price. This happened well over a year ago and since then we’ve found that our client’s are happier because two things are known in advance:
A. The project definition – which for projects over a day is a written document outlining what will be done and who will do it.
B. The price – which is fixed for the services we’ve defined (see A above).
Infoworld has an article today titled 7 Dirty Consultant Tricks (and how to avoid them). Most of the key problems could be avoided if both parties took the time to outline a scope of services ahead of time.
Instead what we’ve often seen is that instead of defining the project in advance – one or both parties (either client or consultant) determines that they’ll “just bill hourly for whatever time is incurred”.
The conflict in this situation is that the client is assuming the time will be minimal and the project well defined. The (bad) consultant assumes the checkbook is wide open (hourly billing) to be assessed as the project grows and grows.
This is an interesting read — and a topic that we’ve found most consultants and client’s don’t “get” until they experience it.
Schulz Consulting is a Connecticut office location for DSD Business Systems. Combined our group represents the entire Sage Software catalog of products ranging from Sage MAS 90, MAS 200, Accpac, MAS 500, ABRA, FAS, MIP, Businessworks and more.
Having this nationwide partner network allows us to service many different states while maintaining our local office. We rely upon a skilled network of 26 individual office locations spread out through the following cities and states:
Fairfield, CA
Fresno, CA
Huntington Beach, CA
Long Beach, CA
San Diego, CA
San Jose, CA
Torrance, CA
Campbellville, Ontario
Markham, Ontario
Winnipeg, MB
Denver, CO
Glastonbury, CT
Watertown, CT
Washington, DC
Kennesaw, GA
Johnston, IO
Baltimore, MD
Duluth, MN
Springfield, MO
Omaha, NB
Lancaster, PA
Langhome, PA
Yakima, WA
We’ve been receiving many calls checking on MAS 90 consulting rates.
For the last 7 years (my guesstimate) we haven’t billed hourly for any technical support calls. These are all handled under an unlimited agreement (full MAS90 Support Agreement here) that provides for as many calls per year as are required to support your MAS system.
For companies with project work – we follow this approach:
1. Understand the problem
2. Discuss whether the problem is solvable in MAS or should be tackled a different way
3. Provide a fixed price estimate to solve the problem – which you agree and approve prior to the start of any work (see copy of sample estimate below).
So the answer to the question –
What’s your rate?
We don’t have one. However we have a pre-determined (and agreed upon) fee to solve a business problem. And we guarantee that fee 100% to be both fixed (within the scope of what we both agree upon) and your ultimate satisfaction.
via: ERPLife
The Spring 2009 conference hosted by the IT Alliance is happening through Tuesday April 28, 2009 in Atlanta.
The IT Alliance is a group of member firms, consultants and vendors who collaborate to share ideas, best practices and network. A number of technical sessions are hosted throughout the two days and cover topics ranging from Disney World Imagineering to project management and consulting pricing.
I’m on the ground and scheduled to completely bore everyone to tears host a session on Tuesday at 8:15 am on the exciting topic of blogging (Ballroom CDE ).
Last Live Conference Feed (via Qik and this may not be broadcasting constantly)
For more IT Alliance Session Summaries – read on [Read more…]