IFS runs some of the most demanding operations in manufacturing, shipping, and asset-heavy industries — and the talent to implement it is genuinely scarce. Finding it means looking past your own market, which is exactly where most hiring efforts stop.
IFS is not SAP or Oracle. The community of consultants who have actually implemented it — in a real production environment, not a sandbox — is small, concentrated in particular regions, and in constant demand. The U.S. market alone rarely provides sufficient IFS talent.
That single fact defeats most hiring efforts before they start. A domestic recruiter searches a domestic database, finds three thin résumés, and concludes the talent doesn’t exist. It does — it’s just in Colombo, or Bangalore, or Gothenburg, and reaching it takes a genuinely international search and the credibility to move experienced people across borders.
Successful IFS programs almost always require expanding the search internationally. Treating IFS like a local hire is the first and most expensive mistake.
The platform is unforgiving of shortcuts, and the failures are always in the team, never the software.
The mistake: searching one domestic market, finding little, and either giving up or settling for a consultant who has read about IFS but never stood up a live environment.
The mistake: removing architecture leadership to save cost — because architects aren’t “continuously billable” like technical consultants — and discovering the design was wrong only after build is underway.
The mistake: writing a single job description that expects architect-level design, functional depth, technical delivery, and team leadership in one seat, usually to fit a budget. The role is unfillable, and pretending otherwise wastes months.
The mistake: building a team heavy on technical consultants but light on the functional experts who understand how the business actually runs on IFS — so the system is configured against the grain of the operation.
The people who own the shape of the implementation. Scarce, senior, and the role most often (and most dangerously) cut for cost.
Depth in the specific modules your operation runs on — not generic ERP familiarity, but real IFS configuration judgment.
Leaders who have actually run an IFS program to go-live and understand where these projects tend to break.
Deep specialists for the corners of IFS — field service, asset management, manufacturing — that generalists cannot cover.
This is not a platform we added to a list. Building IFS teams — including standing up an IFS recruiting practice — is among the founder’s deepest specialties, and it runs across exactly the industries where IFS matters most: manufacturing, shipping, and oil and gas.
Building specialized IFS teams often means expanding beyond a single geography — identifying scarce expertise across multiple countries and helping clients relocate consultants for a business-critical implementation. In one IFS rollout for a global drilling contractor, the challenge wasn’t finding consultants but persuading experienced people in India and Sri Lanka to consider the Philippines — reached not through a job posting, but by presenting an opportunity that fit their long-term careers with a respected international organization, not their next paycheck. That is what an IFS search actually takes.
We know where IFS talent lives, and we know how to move it. That combination is rare, and it is exactly what an IFS program needs.
Around a small number of specialized roles: an IFS solution architect owning the design, functional consultants with depth in the modules that run your operation, project management that understands IFS delivery, and subject-matter experts from the business. IFS is a small, global talent pool, so the structure has to be planned against real availability rather than an ideal org chart.
Start with the IFS solution architect and program leadership, who shape the design and the rest of the team. Functional consultants for the modules your operation depends on follow, then technical consultants and subject-matter experts as build begins. Because IFS talent is scarce, the hardest-to-find roles should be searched for earliest — often internationally.
It depends on what you need to keep. Capability that will own and evolve IFS after go-live — often an architect or functional lead — is usually worth hiring permanently. Defined implementation or upgrade phases, including moves to IFS Cloud, are often better served by contract specialists. Most programs need a deliberate mix of both.
No. Akshayam Consulting is not an IFS partner, reseller, or implementation firm. We provide IFS workforce strategy and specialized staffing — planning the team an IFS ERP or IFS Cloud program needs and recruiting the architects, functional consultants, and other specialists who deliver the implementation.
Tell us about your IFS implementation. We’ll tell you what the team really takes — and where in the world to find it.
Let's Talk About Your Initiative