[quote=AN]I wasn’t referring to the “come and set up my router” type. I’m talking about come and setup big ERP system. I’ve setup a small scale ERP system before (Microsoft Great Plains). It’s not rocket science. It’s much easier than writing those ERP software. I did that while I was fresh out of college too.
At $400/hr, that equivalent to hiring someone full time and pay them ~$800k/yr. I’m not in IT consulting, so I don’t know, but I’m skeptical about the $400/hr rate since I was in the S/W consulting business. Even at the best of time, a S/W architect can’t fetch anywhere near $400/hr.
I didn’t know IT consulting is more lucrative than S/W consulting. Typical rate today for S/W consulting range for 1.5-2x hourly rate (Wipro type to more high end Teleca type). I’d impress to know that there are people who would pay that much more for IT consultant. Even at the high end of your range, 3.5x hourly pay, your typical Sr. IT is probably making around $40-50/hr., so 3.5x that would be $140-175/hr. That’s a far cry from $400/hr.[/quote]
The guys that are doing the installs for the big ERP systems (not GP, which is now MS Dynamics), like Oracle and SAP systems pretty typically bill in the $175-$225 range. The EPM guys that do Hyperion and SAP’s EPM solution tend to be a bit higher. Solution architects tend to be a bit more. The tech guys related to those installations are $250 at the very low end, up to $400. The $400/hr for the non-tech work is typically for the very esoteric stuff. (like SSM and PCM work) I may have exaggerated a bit, in that for one, there aren’t too many of those guys out there, and second, there isn’t that much work for them. (Literally, there may not be more than a dozen guys in the US that know SAP’s SSM module inside and out.) But that is the standard rate for some firms.
These guys get paid more than $50/hr. Some of them a lot more. I’ve got a contractor I pay $165/hr because he has skills that very few had, and he won’t become an employee. His 1099 was over $300K. he’s being cut loose because of that, but the employees that have acquired his skills have W-2’s >$200K, and they bill at $250+. On the lower side of margin %, but still a high margin $ for the industry.
