Prevent a Poor SAP Consultant Match Before You Hire 

When a consultant isn’t the right fit, the pain rarely shows up as a line on an invoice. It arrives as stalled workshops, confused handoffs, and teams burning days explaining basics. The uncomfortable truth: most mis-matches are made upstream in fuzzy briefs, CV-driven screening, and rushed yes/no calls under deadline. The fix is a pre-hire discipline that turns “fit” from a feeling into something you can see and verify.

In this guide: what “fit” really means in SAP work, a simple pre-hire framework to prevent bad matches (no tests, no gimmicks), a short real-world callout to show the stakes, and a prose “what to do next” you can copy into your sourcing playbook.

What “fit” actually means (so you can measure it)

Fit is context, not charisma. In SAP, a good match blends industry process fluency (e.g., OTC pricing/credit, EWM waves), integration judgment (where SD touches FI-AR, MM/ATP, outputs), and ways-of-working (time-zone overlap, cadence, how you document decisions). If any one leg wobbles, you get rework and delay no matter how strong the resume looks.

A pre-hire framework that works in a week (RADAR)

Use RADAR to prevent mis-matches before you sign no take-home tasks required.

1. R – Role Charter. Write a one-pager that fixes the business context, the first-month outcomes, what is explicitly out of scope, and the working setup (tools, decision owners, overlap). This becomes your yardstick for every candidate.
2. A – Artifact proof. Ask for two redacted artifacts from similar work (a spec or test plan, a config/runbook page, or a transport/release note). On a short call, have the consultant walk one artifact live and explain decisions, risks, and outcomes.
3. D – Domain language check. After sharing your charter, ask for a reverse-brief: “Summarize our problem and what you would not do first.” You’ll hear actual process language or generic filler within minutes.
4. A – Alignment with rituals. Invite the consultant into one mini-ritual you already run (a 15-minute refinement or defect triage) and watch how they clarify scope, negotiate trade-offs, and talk to non-IT stakeholders.
5. R – References tied to outcomes. Call two people who can confirm those exact artifacts and results (a stream lead and a peer tester). Verify outcomes, not job titles.

Case callout: why “fit” matters at program scale

In 2018, Lidl stopped a multi-year SAP retail rollout after investing roughly €500m. Post-mortems point to a fundamental process↔platform mismatch: Lidl’s long-standing purchase-price orientation clashed with retail-price assumptions in standard SAP for Retail. Instead of adapting processes, the program leaned into customization, and complexity (plus performance issues) ballooned until leadership cut the rollout and stayed with “Wawi.” The lesson for pre-hire decisions is simple: if the operating model and the solution’s assumptions aren’t aligned and you don’t probe that alignment up front no CV can save you.

How to use RADAR in real life (next steps)

Put the Role Charter in your RFP. One page forces clarity. It also makes vendor submissions comparable.

Schedule two short calls instead of one long interview. First: artifact walk + reverse-brief (25–30 min). Second: join a real team ritual for 15 minutes. You’ll learn more than from an hour of Q&A.

Write evidence into the SOW. Add a line like: “Supplier provides two redacted examples of similar work and a 15-minute live walk-through. References confirm the same deliverables. All work products and decisions live in the client’s repos/wiki.”

Decide with your Fit Score, not gut feel. Capture what you saw/heard under each dimension, add a short risk note, and pick Proceed or Pass. When in doubt, wait a week and see one more candidate; unwinding a bad month is slower.