Here's a pattern we've seen enough times to call it a trend.
A company buys NetSuite. Or Dynamics 365. Or Epicor. They spend six months evaluating vendors. They negotiate the contract. They get the licenses. The executive sponsor is excited. The board approved the budget.
Then they hand the implementation to whoever's available.
Sometimes it's an internal IT person who's never touched that platform. Sometimes it's a contractor who knows the software but has never worked in their industry. Sometimes it's a Controller who was already stretched thin and now has to “also own the ERP rollout.”
Six months later, the go-live date has slipped twice, half the company is still using spreadsheets, and the CFO is asking what happened to the seven-figure investment.
What happened is they got the hire wrong.
The talent problem nobody talks about in ERP
The ERP talent market is tight and getting tighter. Analyst firms project roughly 10% annual growth in ERP spending through 2026, and the demand for experienced implementation professionals keeps outpacing supply.
NetSuite specifically has a thin candidate pool. Oracle's layoffs in March 2026 briefly put more certified NetSuite professionals on the market, but by mid-2026 the market is candidate-driven again. Most qualified ERP professionals aren't actively job-hunting. They're employed, busy, and not scrolling job boards.
That means companies can't just post a job and wait. They need to go find these people, and they need someone who knows how to evaluate whether an ERP candidate is actually qualified or just keyword-matched.
Three hiring mistakes that kill ERP implementations
Mistake 1: Treating “knows the system” as a qualification.
A candidate who has used NetSuite for reporting is a different hire than someone who has configured NetSuite for a manufacturing company's inventory modules, purchasing workflows, and financial consolidation. Both will list “NetSuite” on their resume. One of them will get you through go-live. The other will create more problems than they solve.
The distinction matters enormously, and it's invisible on a resume. You only catch it in conversation, by asking the candidate to walk through a real implementation they've led: what went wrong during data migration, how they handled the cutover, what they'd do differently.
Mistake 2: Hiring from the wrong function.
Is an ERP implementation a tech project or a finance project? The answer is usually both, but the lead needs to come from whichever side is driving the business case.
If you're implementing NetSuite because your CFO needs real-time financial reporting and consolidated books, you need someone who thinks like a finance person and happens to know the system. If you're implementing Dynamics 365 because your operations team needs better supply chain visibility, you need someone who understands operations workflows and can translate them into system configuration.
Hiring an IT Director to lead a finance-driven ERP rollout is one of the most common and most expensive mistakes we see.
Mistake 3: Assuming your current Controller can “also” own this.
Controllers are already stretched. Month-end close, audit prep, compliance, financial reporting, the daily operational work that keeps the books clean. Asking them to also lead a system implementation that will touch every department in the company is asking for one of two outcomes: the implementation suffers, or the books suffer. Usually both.
The companies that get this right either hire a dedicated ERP implementation specialist or bring in a Controller who has specific implementation experience and can handle both sides. That's a specific search. Most recruiters treat it like a regular finance hire.
“A Controller who can also lead an ERP rollout is a specific hire. Not a regular finance search.”
What we look for in ERP talent
We evaluate every ERP candidate through a finance lens, not just a technology lens. Here's what that means in practice:
How they talk about past implementations. Specifics matter. Which modules? What was the timeline? What broke? How did they fix it? If a candidate can't give you concrete details about a real implementation they led, they haven't led one.
Whether they understand the business context. An ERP system serves the business. The best implementation specialists think about how the system will be used by real people in real departments, not just how to configure it technically.
How they handle cross-functional stakeholders. ERP rollouts touch finance, operations, IT, HR, sometimes sales. The person leading it needs to communicate across all of those groups, translate between technical and business language, and manage resistance from teams that don't want to change their workflows.
The bottom line for companies hiring ERP talent
The platform doesn't determine whether your implementation succeeds. The person does.
If you're about to spend six or seven figures on an ERP system, spend real time on the hire. Don't post a job and wait. Don't hand it to whoever's available internally. Don't let a generalist recruiter send you a stack of resumes with “NetSuite” in the skills section.
Find someone who can evaluate these candidates the way we do: by understanding the system, the business context, and the difference between someone who's used the software and someone who's built the implementation.
About ICA
I'm April Ben-Sabat, founder of Inner Circle Agency. I built my career in finance, accounting, HR leadership, and industrial operations before starting ICA. ICA recruits for the roles I used to hold. Our team evaluates candidates the way a board would, because that operational experience is baked into how we work.
ICA is boutique by design. We take on a small number of searches at a time so every client gets senior-level attention. We specialize in Director-to-C-Suite placements across finance, ERP, and operations for mid-market companies in the US.
If you're hiring for a role where the wrong person costs you a year of momentum, let's talk.
Frequently asked questions
Why do so many ERP implementations fail?
Research consistently shows that ERP implementation failure rates are high, with estimates ranging from 50% to 75% of projects experiencing significant issues. While there are many factors (scope creep, poor change management, unrealistic timelines), the quality of the person leading the implementation is one of the most controllable variables. Get the hire right and the other problems become manageable.
What should I look for in an ERP implementation specialist?
Specific implementation experience on your platform, in your industry. Something like “I configured NetSuite's inventory and purchasing modules for a manufacturing company and led the data migration from their legacy system.” If all they can say is “I've used NetSuite,” that's a different candidate. Also look for cross-functional communication skills. ERP rollouts touch every department, and the lead needs to manage stakeholders who don't speak the same language.
How is recruiting for ERP roles different from regular finance hiring?
ERP roles sit at the intersection of finance and technology. A generalist recruiter will match keywords (“NetSuite,” “ERP,” “implementation”). A recruiter with functional expertise will probe for the details: which modules, what kind of data migration, how they handled the cutover, what went wrong. Those details are the difference between a hire who can do the job and a hire who just looks like they can.
Why use a recruiter for ERP hiring instead of posting the job?
Most qualified ERP professionals are not actively searching for jobs. They're employed and busy. Posting a job gets you the people who are looking, which is a small fraction of the available talent. A recruiter with the right network and evaluation skills finds the people who aren't looking but would move for the right opportunity.