Most growing businesses reach a point where their systems hold them back. Orders are keyed twice, reports disagree, and one person knows how everything fits together. A business systems consultant is the person you bring in to sort that out.
This guide explains what a business systems consultant in the UK actually does, when it is worth hiring one, and how to tell a good one from a poor one.
Key PointA good consultant starts with how the work really flows through your business, not with a product list.
What a business systems consultant does
A business systems consultant looks at how work really moves through your business, then designs the systems that support it. That covers your finance software, CRM, stock, e-commerce and the connections between them.
The job is not to sell you a product. It is to understand the process first, decide what each system should own, and only then choose or change software. Our guide to why business systems do not talk to each other shows the problems this work usually starts from.
When it is worth bringing one in
A consultant earns their fee when the cost of the current setup is higher than it looks. Common signs include:
- the same data is entered into more than one system;
- month-end depends on spreadsheets that only one person understands;
- reports from different systems give different answers;
- a new system was bought, but the old workarounds are still in use;
- you are about to replace a core system and want to get it right first time.
If only one of these applies, a short review may be enough. If several apply, the systems need designing as a whole rather than fixing one at a time.
What to look for in a consultant
Good consultants share a few habits, and they show up in the first conversation:
- They ask about the process before the software. If the first meeting is a product demo, the answer has been chosen before the question.
- They decide which system owns each record. Customers, stock and invoices each need one source of truth, and every other system reads from it.
- They plan for failure. Every connection should confirm that data arrived, and tell someone when it does not.
- They work in stages you can check. A data audit, a design, a proof of the riskiest part, then the build.
- They write things down. You should be able to run the systems without them.
Pro TipAsk a candidate to sketch which system should own your customers, stock and invoices. How they answer tells you how they think.
Data, security and compliance
A consultant usually needs access to your systems and, often, to personal data held in them. That brings obligations you should agree up front.
If they will process personal data on your behalf, the ICO's guidance on contracts between controllers and processors sets out what the contract has to cover. That includes acting only on your documented instructions, confidentiality, security and the use of sub-processors.
Anyone holding credentials to your systems is also part of your supply chain. The NCSC's supply chain security guidance is a practical checklist for assessing suppliers.
Finance systems carry their own rules. HMRC's VAT guidance says all VAT-registered businesses should now be signed up for Making Tax Digital for VAT, so any change to how you keep VAT records must keep that working.
Watch OutDo not give a consultant access to live systems or personal data until the contract, the access route and the security checks are agreed in writing.
How a good engagement runs
A well-run project is a sequence of steps, each signed off before the next begins:
- Discovery. Map the current process and systems, including the workarounds.
- Design. Decide what each system owns and how data moves between them.
- Proof. Test the riskiest connection or migration on real data first.
- Build and migrate. Configure, connect and move the data in stages.
- Handover. Documentation, training and a plan for monitoring.
Our article on what an integration actually costs explains how staging also keeps the budget honest.
Questions to ask before you hire
- What will you need to understand about our business before recommending anything?
- Which system will own each type of record, and why?
- How will we know when a connection fails?
- What will you hand over, so we are not dependent on you?
- How will you handle our personal data and access to our systems?
The same questions apply when you are choosing a systems integration company.
Next steps
At Amplio Systems we design business systems around how the work really runs, and build the integrations that keep them in step. If your systems are holding you back, get in touch to talk it through.
Lee Nash is a business systems consultant and co-founder of Amplio Systems.