Independent Consultants:
Leveraging EAI Intellectual Property and Support
EAI offers independent consulting firms a proven, comprehensive intellectual property (IP) suite to enhance their ERP advisory services. With 30 years of development our IP is comprised of detailed methods, project tools, and ERP research/insight. This IP expands consultant’s ability and efficiency to deliver exceptional value to clients in ERP strategy, selection, and implementation control. Our IP and support can elevate your firm’s capabilities, strengthen client relationships, and drive business growth.
Why Partner with EAI?
Stay Top-of-Mind with Prospects: Approximately 10% of companies are actively studying or executing major enterprise system improvements at any time. Our IP assists consultants to sell and deliver such prospects with high-value targeted advisory services.
Drive Client Success and Growth: Deliver impactful, memorable engagements that open doors to upsell opportunities, such as fractional CIO/CFO roles or additional services.
Enhance Your Capabilities: Our IP, refined over 30 years, amplifies your expertise with proven tools and methods, including AI-driven service elements, for greater efficiency.
No Upfront Costs: EAI earns fees only when deals close, sharing a significant portion of the IP fee with originating consultants.
Continual Innovation: Our services approach is set up to capture incremental improvements to service delivery. Including an increasing number of project support elements leveraging AI tools, including initial ERP screening, fixing one-sided commercial terms, and detecting important functional objectives.
Protecting the Integrity of EAI IP and Support
EAI and our consultant partners share a commitment to maintaining the quality and exclusivity of our IP. Key principles include:
Client-Centric Focus: Our IP is designed solely for the benefit of ERP users, free from competing interests that could compromise objectivity.
Consistent Service Standards: Our customizable proposal templates lay a foundation for high-quality, adaptable project plans.
Arms-Length to ERP Industry: EAI has no business relationships with the sellers of ERP applications or implementation services. Our target consultant partners affirm this status and its important impact to unbiased advice.
Independent Consultant Quality: Consultants engaged in projects are evaluated for competence and capacity, tailored to the client’s size, industry, and service type. EAI adjusts its support level—scaling up or down—based on the partner firm’s consultant status.
EAI IP and Support Fees
Our IP and support fees are seamlessly integrated into client proposals, paid only upon acceptance. We collaborate with consultants to craft these proposals. Our IP drives ~50% efficiency gains, enabling faster, higher-quality project delivery. This translates to significant time and cost savings for clients, making the IP fee a clear value-add when communicated effectively.
Our Partnership Model
EAI collaborates with independent consultants to configure and apply our IP for each client project, ensuring agility while maintaining high standards. Support is tailored to project phases, with costs included in client proposals and paid as work progresses. While some EAI support may be client-facing, most occurs behind the scenes to empower your firm’s success.
Our commercial terms protect both EAI’s IP and your client and prospect relationships, designed to foster long-term trust.
Non-Exclusive Partnership with Selective Standards: Our relationship is selective, not exclusive, ensuring mutual benefit:
Selective Partnerships: We choose partners with aligned service standards and no financial ties to ERP vendors or implementers.
Client Decision Drivers: Clients typically prioritize consultant skill and ethics. Accordingly, our IP is positioned in this light - to enhance your service delivery in a supporting role.
Lasting Impressions: Clients remember your team’s quality and results, increasing opportunities for further engagements.
Learn More in our Videos
The first video, featuring EAI founder Mark Engleman, provides details on the evolution of our ERP advisory service IP and value to independent consulting firms. The second video provides details on the collaboration between independent consulting firms and EAI in the three major ERP advisory services offered. If this resonates with your goals, let's schedule a conversation to explore how we can collaborate.
ERP Selection – Cornell Pump
Negotiating ERP costs is complicated and the ERP software vendors take advantage of the buyer’s lack of experience. EAI-SoftSelect’s experience and influence helped us level the playing field. We clearly saved money and lowered our long term risk.
ERP Selection – Provo Craft
EAI-SoftSelect was a great partner throughout the process of choosing an ERP solution. They helped us control the terms throughout the ERP buying process, and we achieved impressive results in reduced ERP license fees.
Having an experienced partner like EAI-SoftSelect, helped us negotiate for the products we need and set our expectations for the process of implementing these solutions.
ERP Selection – Leupold & Stevens
Long term ERP license costs were initially very difficult to calculate. Working with EAI-SoftSelect we were able to insist on a predicable ERP license fee approach and achieve much lower initial and ongoing license fee costs.
