我是 Noel。资深 ERP 与 AI 顾问。从事这一行 25 年，大部分时间都在最难啃的那一块上。CIMA。AICPA。会计学硕士。这些资质本身并不重要，重要的是它们透露出的路径：我是从财务结账切入 ERP 的，而不是从系统配置切入。
最能说明问题的数字是：我在 EDGE Group、Etihad Airways、ADNOC、PIF 旗下机构、DXC 和阿联酋政府交付的转型项目，累计超过 7 亿美元。具体工作分为三类：
Programme recovery
Late, over budget, or technically broken implementations. I come in, separate what's real from what's political, and rebuild the plan.
ECC to S/4HANA and cloud ERP
Migration design, cutover, Finance and Supply Chain transformation, data quality.
AI on ERP data
Governance, agentic workflows on BTP, models that sit on SAP, Oracle, or Microsoft foundations without hallucinating the ledger.
我不卖许可证，也不转售实施服务。我的收入与 Activate 工时或 BTP 订阅无关。这份独立性正是关键所在。
合同的两边我都站过。当过购买这些系统的客户，也当过实施这些系统的顾问。正因为两边都经历过，我才能在项目出问题之前，看出它会在哪里出问题。
行业：航空、银行与金融、政府、制造、零售、电信、公用事业。
平台：SAP S/4HANA 和 ECC、Oracle E-Business Suite 与 Cloud、Microsoft Dynamics、IFS、Navision。
地区：阿联酋、沙特阿拉伯、英国、加拿大、美国。
最让我自豪的几个项目：
- Etihad Airways 的 SAP 财务转型。18 个月交付，按时、按预算，没有出现重大问题。这是我最常提供的客户推荐人通话。
- EDGE Group 跨多个实体的项目工作。
- ADNOC Group 的转型与学习工作流。
- 迪拜的 Digital DEWA：以 SAP 为主导的数字化举措，经受住了审计和运营两方面的检验。
- 公共部门航空业的数据仓库重建。起步很慢，一旦动起来就很扎实。
- 公共部门电信业的 S/4HANA 项目。治理很重，成果实在。
这是我愿意白纸黑字为之辩护的五个观点。是真正的立场，不是含糊的说法。每一条都影响着我的工作方式。
Start with processes, not systems.
Most ERP failures begin in the wrong order. Buy the system, then try to fit your business into it. The conversation should run the other way. Map your processes first. Decide what's broken, what's worth keeping, what needs to change. Then talk about systems. Every greenfield-versus-brownfield debate I've watched go sideways started without this step.
Your SI shouldn't be the one writing your business case.
You need an expert who isn't selling the implementation to write the case for it. That's how $40M programmes become $90M without anyone noticing. The SI's incentive is to start. Yours is to finish. Different jobs.
AI on ERP is real now, and it's moving fast.
Joule is growing by the day. Agentic use cases on BTP are no longer slideware. If your last look at AI-on-SAP was 12 months ago, look again. The board-deck version is over. The shipping version is here. Ignore it and you're on the wrong side of the next two years.
The cheapest consultant is the most expensive one.
Day rate is the smallest variable in total programme cost. A senior advisor at $2,500/day who saves you a six-month overrun is cheaper than a $900/day team that doesn't. Most CFOs work this out only after the second post-mortem.
Walk if a vendor proposes a three-year roadmap before understanding your close.
The finance close is where the real complexity lives. Vendors who skip it are selling a roadmap, not solving a problem. Anyone serious wants to see your close cycle, your reconciliations, and your manual workarounds before they propose anything.
过去几年里的六个时刻。正是这些决定，塑造了我现在的工作方式。
The 2am call from Dubai
A Supply Chain Manager I'd worked with before phoned me at 2am. I was half asleep. His SAP system had crashed and his warehouse team were writing orders on paper. In 2023.
The consultant before me had set it up wrong. I'm still not sure how they managed it. Two weeks of effectively starting over. The CEO aged five years in that fortnight. The system works now. The lesson was about who you let near your core build, not about SAP.
The retail chain restarting every Friday
I walked into a retail office last year. Their inventory system was so old they had to restart it every Friday or it would crash on its own by Monday. Not exaggerating. The owner pulled out an Excel sheet where he manually tracked stock across 50 stores. I think I made a face, because he started defending it before I'd said a word.
His competition was running machine-learning forecasts while he was counting boxes. We got him sorted. He waited about three years longer than he should have.
The S/4HANA telecom programme
Public-sector telecom. They needed better financial reporting. Every small decision required a committee meeting. What takes two weeks in private sector took three months here. I complained about it to my wife every night for a quarter.
But when we finished, they had something that worked properly. Not a Band-Aid. A real reporting platform. Government programmes test your patience and pay you back in durability.
The aviation data warehouse
Same pattern. Slow start. Heavy governance. Many stakeholders. The final architecture was cleaner than anything I'd have negotiated through in the private sector at the same scale. There's a version of public-sector work where the constraints produce better engineering because nobody can shortcut their way past them.
The Riyadh retail AI inventory project
Retail chain in Riyadh. Their inventory was a mess. We built something that learns from sales patterns and adjusts stock automatically. Still has quirks. Beats having a buyer guess what to reorder every week. This is what I mean about AI on ERP: it earns its keep when the underlying master data is clean enough to trust.
The government chatbot that actually helped
A government agency drowning in citizen complaints. We built triage that handles the simple cases and routes the complicated ones to real people. The staff loved it. They could solve actual problems instead of answering the same five questions for the hundredth time that morning. The point of AI here wasn't to remove humans. It was to stop wasting their time on work that didn't need a human.
“I safeguard your investment from the predictable mistakes that turn ERP programmes into business disasters.”
我不会转述这些评价。完整原文都在 LinkedIn 上。
Tareq Ashmawy
Digital Advisor, Department of Government Enablement
Noel is — no cliché — a go-getter with an unprecedented focus on cost optimisation and over-delivering objectives; a mix of qualities that would appear hard for partners or vendors to cope with.
However, I can confirm that my experience with Noel has been challenging, exciting and rewarding.
Adam Boukadida
Chief Financial Officer, Riyadh Air
We had an opportunity to transform the Finance function in Etihad by automating our processes and providing more transparency in financial reporting.
Noel did a splendid job in helping us define and implement our road-map, which included SAP, our ERP, as well as other reporting solutions using Microsoft and automation tools like Robotics and Process Automation.
Andrew Stotter Brooks
Chief Learning Officer, ADNOC Group
His ability to inspire those around him, whether through his strategic insights or his personal integrity, has earned him the respect and admiration of many.
He's not only a role model in the professional space but also someone who leads with empathy, always willing to lend an ear or offer guidance when needed.
Andrew MacFarlane
Managing Partner, Cumbrae Partners LLP (former Chief Investment Officer, Etihad Airways)
Noel led the technical delivery of the SAP Finance Transformation project at Etihad.
This was a very substantial undertaking and it is huge credit to Noel that the programme has delivered on time (18 months), on budget and with no major issues.
Ruchira Dasanayake
Program Manager, Fortude, United Kingdom
His deep understanding of SAP solutions, coupled with his strategic vision, has been truly impressive.
Noel's ability to communicate clearly and deliver results that not only meet but exceed expectations has made a lasting impact. He is a true leader who believes in pushing boundaries.
Farouq Al Kabarity
Digital Design Manager, Digital DEWA, Dubai
Noel's guidance drove significant advancements in our digital initiatives, especially in SAP, improving efficiency and ensuring we stayed ahead of industry trends.
His inclusive leadership fostered a collaborative environment where employees thrived and felt empowered to contribute their best.
Mike Papamichael
PRISM Consulting Services, Cyprus (former Chief Information Officer, EAG)
Noel has been a core member of my IT leadership team in Etihad since 2017.
His functional expertise, combined with his financial accounting knowledge and detailed business process understanding and attention to detail gained from working in Internal Audit are invaluable tools that Noel uses to drive business change and deliver amazing results.
Anubhav Agarwal
HR Executive Leader, Translink Canada
Laying the foundation stones for several key IT efforts to support business transformation across the corporate functions, he has helped steer very successful efforts and investments at EY.
His attention to detail and ex-audit background is an unusual, yet refreshingly formidable combination. With his razor-sharp commercial acumen, he is a great partner to work with all round.
Takhliq Hanif
Head of Architecture, Volkswagen Financial Services
Noel has excellent stakeholder management skills and is a very strong communicator. He has a growth mindset and continually challenges himself and his organisation to deliver quicker and more cost-effectively.
Noel is a very talented negotiator and has a laser focus on cost and value. He builds strong business-focused technology organisations and develops them into talented teams.
更多推荐语见我的 LinkedIn 主页。
- CIMA：特许管理会计师公会
- AICPA：美国注册会计师协会
- 会计学硕士
- 四大会计师事务所的内部审计背景。 在 ERP 设计中具备风险与内控方面的素养。这套功夫，能发现您的系统集成商悄悄留下的内控缺口。
- 25 年以上的企业 ERP 与数据项目经验。
我在 SAP Press、MSN、LinkedIn、IPS、Techbullion 和 The Next Disruption 上撰文、演讲，主题是 ERP 与 AI。我还定期在 YouTube 上发布技术内容。
我也做产品。其中两个已经上线，并在行业内被使用。
ERPCV：面向 ERP 顾问的职业文档
erpcv.com。为 SAP、Oracle 和 Dynamics 顾问打造的、适配 ATS 的简历和职业资料包。这是我入行第二年时就希望自己拥有的产品。
Command Central：ERP 项目的实施跟踪
commandcc.io。面向 ERP 切换和项目治理的项目管理工具。设计语言与本站一致，背后是同一个人。
这两个产品的由来，都是我厌倦了用电子表格东拼西凑。带过足够多的项目之后，积累下来的模式识别能力，最终就变成了产品。
建立在糟糕数据上的 AI，比没有 AI 更糟。先把地基打好。干净的主数据。对平的账。文档化的流程。然后再引入模型。眼下被当作“AI 转型”来卖的东西，大多是模型优先。这是本末倒置。
我在项目中引入 AI 时，顺序是：先做数据质量和治理，再针对痛点最重的流程做有针对性的智能体工作流，最后才是更大范围的推广。多数客户想跳过第一步和第二步。肯让我按这个顺序来的客户，能走到第三步。不肯的，就走不到。
两边我都做。说实话，它们是两种完全不同的生物。
私营部门节奏快。CEO 周一拍板，项目下个月就启动。政府正好相反。我曾为了查看一套现有系统，等了六个月的安全审查。
两边各有好处。私营企业能很快调整方向。政府项目一旦动起来，背后通常有真金白银的预算。没人会要您拿零花钱去交付一场转型。
两种失败的方式也不一样：
- 私营部门的失败，通常是节奏上的失败。 推得太快，跳过了结账环节的调研，切换时出了事。
- 公共部门的失败，通常是治理上的失败。 委员会太多，签字环节太多，范围被定得死死的，却没人对照实际运营验证过。
两种情况的解法是一样的。尽早让合适的资深人士进入会议室，并让他们从头待到尾。
我同一时间只接少数几个项目。我会直接告诉您，我是不是合适的人选。如果项目遇到了麻烦，或者您想在与供应商签约前听一听第二意见，请联系我。最快的方式是在 Calendly 上预约 30 分钟通话。
三个站点，同一个人：noeldcosta.com（本站，企业咨询）、erpcv.com（顾问职业产品）、commandcc.io（ERP 项目跟踪工具）。
您通常参与多大规模的项目？
企业级规模。我的客户大多年收入在 1 亿到 50 亿美元之间，多实体，往往跨多个国家。我做的这类工作不太适合缩小到 2000 万美元规模的企业，我接的最小的合作，通常是为期 1 到 2 周的付费范围界定。
您接受全职岗位吗？
不接受。我经营的是一家咨询业务。我同一时间只接少数几个项目，并全程亲自参与。签约时点名的那个人，始终在会议室里。
您转售 SAP 或 Oracle 许可证吗？
不转售。我独立于软件供应商和系统集成商。我的收费方式与许可证数量、Activate 工时或 BTP 订阅无关。这份独立性，正是合作的意义所在。
我还没有选定系统集成商，您能帮我写商业论证吗？
可以，而且这通常是正确的顺序。商业论证应该由不向您兜售实施服务的人来写。否则，各方的利益并不一致。
您接项目挽救类的工作吗？
接。我大约三分之一的工作是挽救类。延期的项目，出了问题的切换，闹僵了的系统集成商关系。我先分辨哪些是真问题，哪些只是内部政治，然后与客户团队一起重建计划。
您常驻哪里，在哪些地方工作？
常驻阿联酋。我的工作范围覆盖阿联酋、沙特阿拉伯、整个海湾合作委员会（GCC）地区、英国、欧洲、加拿大和美国。切换和指导委员会期间，我会在现场。其余时间远程。
如果我想聊一聊，第一步是什么？
在 Calendly 上预约一次 30 分钟的初步沟通通话。如果我们合适，下一步就是付费的范围界定（1 到 2 周）。如果不合适，我会在通话中直说，并为您指一位合适的人。