WHAT DOES AN APPLICATION CONSULTANT DO?
The Application Consultant builds and maintains professional relationships, serving as a trusted advisor across various stakeholders. They develop and implement comprehensive project documentation and procedures, ensuring seamless software implementation and maintenance. Additionally, they provide exceptional customer service, conduct thorough business analysis, and facilitate user training to optimize software utilization and exceed client expectations.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Application Consultant
1. Application Consultant Duties
- Requirements Gathering: Gather requirements from internal customers.
- Business Analysis: Translate business requirements into functional IT requirements.
- IT Alignment: Align with IT counterparts on integration topics.
- Roadmap Adherence: Follow product and business roadmaps.
- Solution Support: Support the implementation of (pilot) solutions in business.
- Testing Guidance: Guide user acceptance tests and the testing of solutions.
- Effective Communication: Communicate implemented solutions to customers in fluent English.
- Knowledge Maintenance: Maintain the Customer Application Knowledge Base with customized functionality, troubleshooting guide, and practical how-to documents.
- Ticket Preparation: Prepare clear and structured input on tickets that need support from colleagues with the most suitable expertise.
- Priority Management: Keep a clear overview at all times, smartly dividing time, and switching between priorities.
2. Application Consultant Responsibilities
- Requirements Gathering and Solution Design: Gather requirements, understand challenges, and work with architects to provide solutions.
- Development and Testing: Design, develop, and test during implementation.
- Go-live Support: Provide go-live support as per the project plan.
- Client Demo and POC Presentation: Provide a demo or a POC for potential clients and present best practices.
- Solution Showcasing: Showcase unique solutions to other potential clients.
- Professional Development Access: Access to all the technical and management training courses needed to become the expert want to be.
- Learning and Mentorship: Learn directly from expert developers in the field; team leads love to mentor.
- Team Management: Managing the day-to-day allocation of work for a moderate team of 3 people.
- Configuration and Deployment: Perform Configuration promotion across various test environments based on user interface-based deployments; perform manual deployment based on release notes, performing validation checks.
- Deployment Support: Work with product development and systems management for deployment issues.
3. Application Consultant Job Summary
- Relationship Management: Build and maintain professional relationships and become a trusted advisor with clients (business and process owners throughout the organization), partners, vendors, and internal team members.
- Documentation Development: Develop project documentation, standard operating procedures, testing cases, and other documentation during and after building on implementation tasks.
- Brand Promotion: Promote the Company brand by contributing to the development of delivery methodology, knowledge base, proposals, and statements of work, and participating in User Groups, Conferences, and Presentations.
- Software Expertise: Become an expert on the functionality and capabilities of the software, making enhancement requests to the product development team when appropriate.
- Project Support: Support Project Managers in managing engagement contracts, identifying and escalating bottlenecks, prevent out of scope items and project progress updates.
- Team Collaboration: Work with all other teams to achieve project implementation including the data services, deployment, GIS (if applicable), and RandD Teams.
- Customer Service: Provide outstanding customer service and resolve client issues throughout the implementation process.
- Business Analysis: Provide business analysis through gap analysis, root cause analysis, facilitation of business process reviews and documentation, and requirements translation.
- Client Understanding: Allow the project team to gain a comprehensive understanding of the client's needs to overcome barriers and achieve the client's organizational goals.
- Software Configuration: Understand the client's business processes and configure the software using workflow and business practices.
- Change Management: Own the user acceptance testing and change management process by ensuring stakeholder satisfaction with the outcome of the project through client testing and training.
- Training Delivery: Train the end-users in how to use the software in both remote and classroom-led sessions.
- Client Capability Building: Build clients' capabilities, encouraging them to achieve success beyond expectations by identifying opportunities for recommending additional products and services that fit the needs of clients.
4. Application Consultant Accountabilities
- Collaboration: Work together with consultants in a project team.
- Business Analysis: Analyze the business processes of the customers, give advice, and translate them into IT solutions.
- User Training: Guide key users during implementation and educate them.
- Training and Testing: Provide training and software testing.
- Technical Communication: Compile clear technical descriptions and communicate them with the technical team.
- Customer Relationship: Build a relationship with customers with business knowledge.
- Project Management: Plan, coordinate, and document activities according to the set budgets and timing.
- Ansible Implementation: Proficient in implementing Ansible playbooks for installation and configurations of application servers/DBs - e.g. primary Microsoft IIS Servers, MS SQL servers, SAP ECC, Netweaver.
- Linux Automation: Develop Ansible playbooks and modules to provide a level of automation for routine Linux administration tasks.
- Windows Automation: Develop Ansible playbooks and modules to provide a level of automation for routine Windows administration tasks.
- Automation Design: Design and implement automation and orchestration solutions leveraging existing Ansible Tower deployment.
5. Application Scientist Functions
- Senior Technical Guidance: Performing a senior technical role, guiding Consultants and client personnel on best-practice techniques.
- Team Leadership: Performing a team leader role, leading and managing the teams on customer projects.
- Coaching: Coaches more junior consultants in the company’s delivery approach and standards.
- Solution Architecture: Designing and architecting a solution.
- User Research: Conducting end-user interviews with customers' users, for the purposes of identifying gaps and challenges with user experience and user journeys.
- UX Workshops: Leading and facilitating user experience-focused workshops with customers.
- Business Analysis: Leading workshops and client meetings to understand the Business Requirements where further detail is needed.
- Requirements Elicitation: Eliciting and challenging the customer’s Business Requirements and potentially supporting the documentation of these requirements.
- Solution Design Leadership: Leading solution designs, describing how the Oracle application, or a module of the Oracle application, fits into the rest of the architecture.
- Prototyping and Wireframing: Prototyping and designing wireframes to support user interface and user experience design activities.
- Design Documentation: Creating functional designs, high-level designs, and low-level designs as appropriate.
- Oracle Implementation: Providing implementation, enhancement, and support of Oracle application-based solutions.
- Oracle Learning: Learning, and keeping up to date with Oracle application configuration skills.
- Software Configuration: Configuring the Packaged Software to support the business requirements and end-user experience goals.
- Integration Support: Configuring the Packaged Software to support integration with other packaged and custom software.
- Testing and Deployment Support: Supporting testing and deployment of the application solutions.
6. Application Scientist Job Description
- Presentation Skills: Making presentations to customers, either as part of a project or during the client's Consulting sales activities.
- Operational Support Skills: Supporting day-to-day operational activities of Consulting.
- Adaptability & Leadership Skills: Any other duties requested by management commensurate with the grading of the post.
- Initiative Ownership Skills: (Potential) Ownership of important internal initiatives, where requested by management.
- Strategic Planning & Evangelism Skills: Investigating approaches and making recommendations for evangelizing, rolling out knowledge, and supporting the success of the initiative.
- Learning & Development Skills: Investigating and/or delivering learning and development opportunities.
- Team Management Skills: Overseeing of other team members taking part in the initiative.
- Advisory Skills: Providing advice to other colleagues involved with the initiative.
- Progress Reporting Skills: Reporting to management on progress.
- Professional Development Skills: Maintaining own levels of Continuing Professional Development relevant to the role and needs of Consulting.
- Self-Improvement Skills: Reviewing, evaluating, and developing own contribution to Consulting.
- Quality Assurance Skills: Ensuring compliance with quality systems.
- Peer Support Skills: Providing support for colleagues.
7. Application Scientist Tasks
- Clinical Evaluation and Demonstration: Conduct on-site clinical evaluations for new and existing customers to demonstrate the use of products and services, thereby increasing the frequency and quality of IGS (Image Guided Surgery) product usage.
- Consulting and Problem-solving: Provide on-site consulting, guidance, and assistance to physicians and OR personnel by evaluating options and problem-solving during surgery to maximize IGS efficiency and usage.
- Installation Leadership: Lead installations and establish functionality at new and existing customer sites.
- Education and Training: Educate/train physicians and hospital personnel, including OR staff, Radiology, Central Sterile Processing, Biomedical, and Information Technologies staff, on the use of IGS products and services.
- Quality Improvement Contribution: Utilize engineering expertise to contribute to the quality improvement process by recommending product modifications.
- Customer Liaison: Act as the primary customer liaison, maintaining site visits and regular contact with customers, assessing satisfaction and usage levels.
- Revenue Increase: Work to increase revenue via the sale of service contracts, spare/wear parts, upgrades, etc.
- Sales Strategy Collaboration: Regularly strategize with the Account Manager in the region, evaluating customer situations, open sales projects, and identifying and referring sales leads.
- Product Issue Resolution: Resolve product issues through detailed analysis and utilization of engineering expertise.
- Market Intelligence: Keep abreast of new developments regarding Brainlab and competitive IGS products and services via ongoing training and individual research and analysis.
- Continuing Education: Attend IGS Continuing Education annually and maintain annual product certification competency.
- Product Promotion: Promote IGS products and services to surgeons at trade shows.
- Complaint Handling: Report and document complaints per Complaint Handling SOP and maximize customer satisfaction.