A field report from Anita Anello
The three places every SAP project breaks. And how the right consultant gets paid to fix them.
After 22 years, 10,000+ implementations, and hundreds of executives on the other side of the table, I can tell you the same three things break on almost every SAP project. The consultants who learn to name them get hired directly. Everyone else waits for a staffing request.
The technology works. The investment is real. The intention is there. And yet somewhere between kickoff and go-live, the wheels come off. I've watched it happen from every seat: inside SAP, inside the integrator, inside the client, and now as the independent brought in to unstick it.
The failure is almost never the software. It's one of three specific breakdowns, and once you can name them, you stop being a resource and start being the answer.
"The answer was always in the room. The consultant who can find it, and speak it, is the one who gets paid like an executive."
Breakdown #1: Translation between business and technology
Business assumes the SI understood the requirement. The SI assumes the business signed off. Nobody notices the gap until UAT, when finance says "this isn't what we asked for." The design was right on paper and wrong in reality.
The consultant who can sit between a CFO and a FI/CO lead and make both feel heard, in the same sentence, is worth more than any certification. That is a positioning play, not a technical one.
Breakdown #2: Governance and decision rights
Every stalled SAP project I've walked into has the same fingerprint: no one is actually allowed to decide. Steering committees rubber-stamp. Workstream leads escalate. Change requests pile up. The project manager becomes a note-taker.
Clients pay a premium for a consultant who can redraw the decision map in the first two weeks. That is not a delivery skill. That is executive presence packaged as a deliverable.
Breakdown #3: Change adoption after go-live
The system goes live and the business quietly keeps working the old way inside spreadsheets. Adoption metrics look fine on paper because logins are tracked, not behavior. Six months later leadership asks why the ROI never materialized.
The consultant who owns adoption, and can prove it, is the consultant the client renews. This is where retainers are born.
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How to sell into the breakdown, not around it
Most SAP consultants pitch capability. Modules, certifications, years of experience. Buyers glaze over. Executives don't buy capability. They buy the relief of a specific problem being named out loud and solved on a timeline.
Diagnose in the first conversation
Walk into every discovery call able to describe the three breakdowns in the client's own vocabulary. Not generic frameworks. No techno babble. The specific version happening on their project right now. That is what earns the second meeting.
Frame yourself as the translator
The premium consultant is not the deepest technical expert. They are the one who can hold both sides of the conversation. Position on LinkedIn, in your bio, and in every proposal as the person who closes the translation gap.
Price the outcome of the fix
A stalled SAP project burns six-figure months. Frame your fee against that burn, not against a day rate. The moment you attach your price to their risk, decision makers stop negotiating you like a contractor.
Turn the fix into a retainer
Once the immediate breakdown is stabilized, offer a governance retainer. Monthly executive-level oversight of the project. That is how one $150K engagement becomes a $605K year.
"I stopped pitching my SAP experience and started naming the three breakdowns on the client's project. My close rate went from one in ten to one in three."
Next step
Ready to run the play? Join the next live masterclass.
Thursday, August 20 · 12:00 PM PT
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