We have never been involved with advertising our services, as we worked by recommendation only and usually maintain relationships over decades rather than months.

At the core of ConsultantBox.com (CB) lays the concept of quality consulting in SAP – to this end the reference check facility has been created as a free option for all.

We have been fortunate enough to work with many excellent SAP consultants around the world, but we are also acutely aware that there are some consultants working today without the ability or professionalism, who are able to continue working on projects because there is no central reference check facility. The impact of these few individuals can range from simply producing no work to leaving worm holes in security systems (we know some who do this regularly) to playing mind games with in house staff to complete project failures – please make no mistake, this happens far more often than assumed or, in fact, reported.

Having worked with companies to recover disastrous projects, we are well aware of the impact this has on budgets, timelines and reputations of project managers who have made decisions to the best of their ability.

To make this a worth while project, CB delivers an easy to use and direct solution for hiring managers where a consultant’s reputation is an integral part of the consultants profile. When searching for consultants CB offers a direct search, select and contact feature – ensuring time and money are both saved - the reason for this is that this is what we would want.

A fundamental belief within CB is that a reference should deliver more than a few pats on the back by friends and should contain information that can be used as a reliable source of information, to this end CB uses 5 criteria to build a view of a consultant:

 
SAP experience, including number of years, management skills, core and sub skills, references and a rating system based on point score which are then aggregated to prioritise search results.

SAP Certification

External SAP training taken passed through highly respected companies.

Self evaluation

Education.

The combination of these criteria demonstrates how the consultant sees themselves, how they are considered in the market and how much they have invested in themselves.

We have also set up a CB verification stamp which is viewable on a consultants CV or website – checking references is free and simple, regardless of where you received the CV from.

The site is not designed for people to meet new friends or send photos – it is a site for business people working in SAP who need to make rational choices with maximum information as quickly as possible.

CB has partnered with many consulting houses - large and small - to provide a unique service, where they are able to list their SAP staff as being available for ‘rent’ for short term projects – this increases both their ROI and staff retention.

The flip side of the consulting house link, allows CB to offer an unrivalled selection of SAP consultants who are not available through any other channel.

In order for the consulting houses to work with us, there was a general demand that there should be no agents allowed on the site to minimise headhunting activity – this has the added advantage of improving budgets when hiring through CB.

It is likely that you have come to the ConsultantBox.com page through a recommendation from a member of ConsultantBox.com – this is a deliberate marketing strategy, which we have adopted to promote our service. CB operates an open pricing plan based on 10% fee (lowest in the industry, based on the consultant’s hourly charging rate) of which up to 50% is returned to our network in rewards, these are earned by recommending consultants and hiring managers to the site – but we ask that people only recommend the site, if they believe that quality has a place in SAP consulting and if they wish to support that concept.

We were very proud to introduce CB to the SAP community in April 2010, it has seen tremendous growth since its first inception – the reviews received have proved that there is a genuine desire to improve consulting standards from both clients and consultants alike.

At launch in April 2010 CB was reviewed by some of the most senior names in the industry who offered some invaluable feedback on ways to improve – June 2010 sees the finalisation of these changes but we always welcome ideas and recommendations.