Digital consultancy for SMEs in Galicia: what to demand before signing

“Digital consultancy” is one of the most devalued terms in the industry. Any company selling an ERP, a CRM or a website calls “consultancy” the preliminary meeting where they explain why you need exactly what they happen to sell.

A genuine digital consultancy for SMEs in Galicia does the opposite: it first understands your business, then proposes something — and often the conclusion is that you don’t need to buy anything yet, just tidy up processes or cut out steps. This happens more often than you’d think.

Diagnosis vs sales script

When a consultancy turns up at your company with a 40-slide PowerPoint on day one, be suspicious. What they should do is shadow you through real working hours before even opening the laptop. Watch how an order comes in, how long it takes the team to invoice, how many times an operator asks “where does this get logged?”.

An honest diagnosis includes, at minimum:

• A map of current processes with real measured times, not estimates.
• An inventory of tools in use and what part of the work each one handles (including the “invisible” spreadsheets propping up 60% of SMEs).
• Points where data gets duplicated: where the same information gets entered twice or three times.
• The real cost of errors: how much a duplicate shipment costs, a lost delivery note, an invoice issued late.
• Opportunities ranked by ROI, not by how flashy they are.

If after 2 weeks of consultancy they haven’t handed you something like that, it isn’t consultancy. It’s a sales pitch in disguise.

4 questions you should ask before signing

1. “How many of your clients implemented what you proposed and are still using it two years later?” If they don’t have the answer or give you a vague one, that’s a sign they’ve never measured it. Enterprise software abandoned after six months is a national sport.

2. “What business problem am I actually solving, and how do we measure it?” If the answer is “modernisation”, “competitiveness” or “digital transformation”, that’s not an answer. Good answers are concrete: “it saves you X hours a week”, “it cuts returns by Z%”, “it halves the order-to-invoice cycle”.

3. “What happens if we do nothing?” A consultant who tells you “sometimes you don’t need to do anything” is worth more than one with a solution for everything. Some problems are fixed by hiring a person, not software. Others, by changing a process, not implementing a tool.

4. “Does the solution still work if you disappear tomorrow?” The worst outcome is ending up dependent on a provider who’s the only one who understands the system. A serious consultancy leaves you with documentation, exportable configuration and a continuity plan.

Typical warning signs in the Galician market

• A Kit Digital digitising agent that builds template websites: cloned solutions, with no original design or business objective. The voucher gets spent, the website brings no customers.
• A consultant who recommends SAP to a 12-person SME: classic over-sizing, costly licences and months of implementation for something a cheap SaaS CRM would already have solved.
• An agency proposing a “comprehensive plan” without having seen your processes: the same proposal for every client, only the logo changes.
• The one who opens with “what technology do you use?”: they should open with “what keeps you up at night?”.

How to spot one who actually knows what they’re doing

A serious digital consultant for a Galician SME will ask you:

• Who uses what, how many hours a day, with what frustration.
• What the last costly mistake was and how it originated.
• What tasks you’re personally doing that you should be delegating but have no system to do so.
• What you tried before and why it failed.

If the first meetings are about technology (ERP vs CRM, cloud vs on-premise), run. If they’re about how your team actually works, you’re in good hands.

How it should be billed

An initial diagnosis for an SME of 5-30 people is usually offered free (if the consultant believes there’s a project afterwards) or for a reasonable fee if they’re independent and bill for the analysis. Any disproportionate quote for the diagnosis phase is a sign you’re being sold “enterprise” consultancy that doesn’t fit your size.

The implementation phase varies by scope, but it’s worth breaking it down: three short phases with verifiable deliverables beat a monolithic project spanning half a year. The reason is practical: within the first two months you’ll already know whether the consultant understands your business or not, and a phased project lets you walk away without bloodshed.

A concrete example of how it should work

A Galician distribution SME with its own warehouse contacted us wanting to “modernise the ERP”. After three days shadowing the team, the diagnosis turned up several things at once: orders were coming in by WhatsApp and phone and being transcribed by hand (three or four hours a day between two people), stock had inaccuracies that generated duplicate commitments to customers, and the reporting for management was put together by hand by accounting every Monday.

The recommendation was structured in two phases:

• Short term: an automatic receiver that transcribes orders and leaves them ready to validate before entering them into the existing ERP. Small scope, implemented in a few weeks, immediate impact on the administrative team’s hours.
• Medium term: migration to the modern ERP we’ve designed specifically for SMEs with logistics operations. It natively integrates what today are patches (multichannel reception, real-time stock, automatic reporting). It’s rolled out while the business keeps running, in phases of four to six weeks.

The automatic receiver acts as a bridge while the migration is evaluated and carried out. But it’s worth saying clearly: the receiver alone relieves part of the pain; when the same capability lives inside the new ERP — talking in real time with stock, routes and CRM — the value skyrockets. Each additional module multiplies the value of the ones before it. Having three isolated capabilities is not the same as having five integrated modules that reinforce each other.

That’s the kind of diagnosis that sets a consultancy apart from a sales operation.

Frequently asked questions

What does a digital consultancy for SMEs actually do?

A genuine digital consultancy first understands your business and only then proposes anything. An honest diagnosis includes, at minimum: a map of current processes with real measured times, an inventory of the tools in use, points where data gets duplicated, the real cost of errors, and opportunities ranked by ROI. Often the conclusion is that you don’t need to buy anything yet — just tidy up processes or cut out steps.

How much does a digital consultancy cost for an SME?

An initial diagnosis for an SME of 5-30 people is usually offered free (if the consultant believes there’s a project afterwards) or for a reasonable fee if they’re independent and bill for the analysis. Any disproportionate quote for the diagnosis phase is a sign you’re being sold enterprise consultancy that doesn’t fit your size. Implementation is best broken down into short phases with verifiable deliverables.

How do I tell a good digital consultancy apart from a sales pitch in disguise?

If the first meetings are about technology (ERP vs CRM, cloud vs on-premise), run. If they’re about how your team actually works, you’re in good hands. A serious consultancy asks who uses what and with what frustration, what the last costly mistake was, what you tried before and why it failed, and leaves you with documentation, exportable configuration and a continuity plan so the solution keeps working even if the provider leaves.

Does my Galician SME need a digital consultancy or a diagnosis before buying software?

Before paying for an ERP, a CRM or renewing infrastructure, it’s worth getting a diagnosis with numbers proving the change pays off. Some problems are fixed by hiring a person or changing a process, not by implementing a tool. A good consultancy tells you what happens if you do nothing and, if there’s no project that makes the change worthwhile, tells you so with the numbers to prove it.

What we offer at Rowan Tech

The first conversation is free and always at your warehouse or office, not by video call. Half the value is in seeing how the team actually works, not how it’s supposed to work. The diagnosis delivers a plan across two horizons: the automations that ease the workload immediately and the route towards our ERP for SMEs with logistics operations, which integrates all those capabilities natively.

If after the diagnosis we conclude there’s no project that would make the change worthwhile, we tell you so with the numbers to prove it. If there is, we break it into phases with deliverables every 4-6 weeks.

Book a free diagnosis and within the first 20 minutes we’ll tell you whether your case fits or not.