by STEPHAN KONDA | Oct 16, 2026 | Insights
For an ERP integrator, the scenario is familiar: a new project is signed, the start date is set, and two consultants are missing on a specific module. A permanent hire takes months; turning down the project or pushing back the plan costs the client relationship. In between, there is an increasingly common route: extending your bench with freelance experts, without making your structure heavier.
Why permanent hiring is not the answer to everything
Permanent recruitment remains the foundation of a solid practice. But it reaches its limits in three situations:
- Workload peaks: several projects start at the same time, then activity returns to normal.
- Niche expertise: a module or localisation you need on one project, without enough work to keep a full-time expert busy afterwards.
- Timelines: between the search, the notice period and onboarding, a permanent hire often arrives after the project has started.
In these cases, a permanent hire creates a lasting fixed cost for a one-off need, with a risk of bench time at the end of the project.
Options to extend your bench
- Direct freelancers: flexible and fast, but sourcing and qualifying them takes time, and you manage the contractual relationship alone.
- Subcontracting to a partner: another firm or integrator provides its consultants, under a services contract.
- Staffing through a specialist firm: the firm identifies, qualifies and presents experts on your module, on assignment or contract, and can also hire permanently when the need becomes lasting.
Whatever the option, one point is worth checking with your legal team: in France, supplying staff for profit is regulated. The contract must cover a genuine service, with a defined deliverable or expertise, and not simply the loan of labour.
Good practice on the integrator side
- Qualify module by module. “SAP consultant” or “Workday consultant” is not enough: Employee Central or payroll, Financials or PSA, design or support. The more precise the need, the more reliable the selection.
- Check project references: size of the rollouts, exact role, working languages, client sectors.
- Prepare onboarding: project method, tools, client contacts. A freelancer who is up and running in a few days is a freelancer who was well welcomed.
- Think ahead: some experts on assignment become excellent permanent candidates once the relationship is established.
The right balance
The strongest ERP practices often combine a core of permanent experts, who carry the method and the client relationship, with a network of qualified freelancers who can be mobilised quickly. This model lets you respond to tenders without waiting to hire, and keep your cost structure under control.
The condition is to have that network before you need it. On the day the project is signed, it is often too late to start looking.
Are you an integrator or consultancy that needs to strengthen a team on Workday, SAP, Oracle Cloud or Dynamics 365? Discover our freelance and contract staffing service.
by STEPHAN KONDA | Oct 16, 2026 | Insights
When people talk about Workday, they think HR and Finance first. Yet part of the market plays out on a much more discreet module: Workday Professional Services Automation, or Workday PSA. Few companies deploy it, few consultants master it, and that is exactly what makes it one of the trickiest hires in the ecosystem.
Workday PSA: what are we talking about?
Workday PSA is aimed at organisations that sell time and projects: consulting firms, IT services companies, engineering firms, software vendors with a services business. It covers the full lifecycle of a client project:
- planning projects, budgets and forecasts;
- resource staffing, matching skills and availability with project needs;
- time entry and approval;
- project billing: time and materials, fixed price, subscription or usage-based;
- revenue recognition and profitability tracking.
Its strength lies in its native integration with Workday HCM and Workday Financials: the same data feeds HR, projects and accounting. That is also what makes the module demanding.
Why these profiles are so rare
A good Workday PSA consultant sits at the crossroads of three worlds:
- finance: billing, revenue, customer contracts, period close;
- services operations: staffing, utilisation rates, project margin management;
- Workday configuration: business processes, project structures, integrations with Financials and HCM.
Few consultants combine all three. Many come from Workday Financials and have touched PSA on one or two projects; others know the consulting business inside out but not the tool. Profiles who have led several full PSA rollouts are few, and rarely available.
There is also a volume effect: PSA is deployed in fewer companies than Workday HCM. So there are fewer projects to train new experts, and the talent pool renews slowly.
What this means for your hiring
For this kind of profile, the usual methods work poorly:
- Job ads attract few qualified candidates. The best profiles are in a role or on assignment and are not actively looking.
- Job titles are misleading. A “Workday Financials” CV can hide real PSA experience, and vice versa. You have to qualify module by module.
- Timelines stretch as soon as the need combines PSA with a specific language and location.
- Competition is direct: integrators, vendors and end-user companies are after the same people.
How to secure this kind of hire
- Define the scope precisely: design, rollout, support, or post-go-live optimisation? Complex billing or staffing? The ideal profile changes with the answer.
- Consider adjacent profiles: a strong Workday Financials consultant with real exposure to PSA can ramp up faster than a business expert with no hands-on experience of the tool.
- Combine permanent and freelance: an expert on assignment for the start, while a permanent hire takes over in the long run.
- Approach candidates directly, with a precise pitch about the project: often the only way to reach them.
In short
Workday PSA is a niche module, but for services businesses it goes to the heart of the business model: staffing, billing, margin. Its scarcity on the market is not inevitable: it simply calls for a more targeted, earlier approach.
Looking for a Workday PSA consultant or project manager, permanent or on assignment? Discover our Workday expertise or let’s talk about your needs.
by STEPHAN KONDA | Oct 16, 2026 | Insights
On 31 December 2027, SAP ERP 6.0 (ECC) leaves mainstream maintenance. For many French companies, the date speaks first to IT leaders. Yet it matters just as much to HR and finance: SAP HCM, ECC’s long-standing HR module, follows the same timeline. And the real issue is not technical: it is the availability of the skills needed to complete the transition in time.
What actually happens at the end of 2027
Mainstream maintenance for ECC enhancement packages 6 to 8 ends on 31 December 2027. Older versions have already left it. In practice, SAP will no longer deliver new legal updates or fixes under standard maintenance.
Three options exist to buy time, each with a cost:
- Extended maintenance, from 2028 to the end of 2030, for an additional 2 percentage points on the maintenance base.
- Customer-specific maintenance from 2031: the system keeps running, but the scope of support shrinks significantly.
- SAP ERP, private edition – Transition Option, announced in February 2025 for very large and complex SAP landscapes: it allows ECC to be extended until the end of 2033, as part of a move to private cloud and a migration to SAP Cloud ERP.
None of these options removes the deadline. They move the date, and often the bill.
For payroll and HR, a choice of path
On the HR side, the question is not just migrating to S/4HANA. Companies have two main routes:
- Stay on-premise with SAP HCM for SAP S/4HANA (often called H4S4), designed for customers who want to keep HR and payroll on site. SAP says it plans to maintain at least one S/4HANA release until the end of 2040.
- Move to the cloud with SAP SuccessFactors (Employee Central, Employee Central Payroll, talent modules), often in a hybrid setup during a transition phase.
- And, for some groups, switching vendor to Workday or Oracle Cloud HCM, a decision that opens a whole different programme.
Each route calls for different profiles. That is where the timeline tightens.
The real bottleneck: skills
Hundreds of companies in Europe will launch or speed up their projects in the same window. They will all be looking for the same profiles at the same time:
- SAP HCM and French payroll consultants, able to understand the existing system before migrating it;
- Employee Central and Employee Central Payroll consultants;
- architects and integration experts (SAP Integration Suite, payroll and time interfaces);
- project managers and workstream leads who have already delivered an HR migration.
Profiles who master both the old world (HCM, French payroll, schemas and rules) and the new one (SuccessFactors or S/4HANA) are the rarest. They are also the ones data migration and payroll continuity depend on.
What you can do now
- Map your dependency on SAP HCM: payroll, time, personnel administration, interfaces. The more precise the inventory, the clearer the skills you need.
- Choose your path early. H4S4, SuccessFactors or a vendor change: the decision determines who you need to hire.
- Secure in-house knowledge. Your HCM experts are also in demand on the market; losing them mid-project is costly.
- Plan critical hires ahead, permanent and freelance alike. For these profiles, waiting for the project kick-off often means arriving after everyone else.
In short
The end of 2027 is not a hard stop for your system, but it is a hard stop for your plan. Extension options exist; the availability of experts does not extend. Companies that secure their key skills in 2026 and 2027 will approach the transition in far better shape.
Preparing your SAP HR roadmap and looking for HCM, SuccessFactors or S/4HANA experts? Let’s talk about your needs.
