Every SAP partner proposal contains the same three promises: senior consultants, proven methodology, on-time delivery. The way to tell them apart is to ask questions the deck was not built to answer.
Questions about the people
Ask who, by name, will be on your project — and whether the people in the sales meetings will ever bill an hour on it. Ask what happens when a named consultant rolls off mid-project. The bait-and-switch from A-team to bench is the oldest move in the industry.
Questions about the plan
Ask which parts of the estimate they are least confident in. An honest partner names the risky workstreams immediately; a salesman tells you the estimate is solid. Ask what similar projects actually cost against their original estimates — not what they were quoted at.
Questions about after go-live
Ask who supports you in the first ninety days and what that costs. Ask how knowledge transfers to your team, and what they need from you to make the timeline real. Projects fail on the client side as often as the partner side — a good partner will say so.
