In ERP implementations different individuals perform different roles and work as team. These roles varies organization to organizations. I observer ERP consultants in following roles.
Functional consultant:
These are unique individual, who usually expert in particular module of Dynamics Ax. They have day to day interaction with business user at client side. They responsible for understanding the functionality of client, document these business process and map them into Dynamics Ax out of the box functionality. They also interact with technical consultant for testing the customization and checking the functionality is fully working after customization. They are more focused on certain module of dynamics Ax like GL and financials. Production, Inventory management or procurement and sourcing.
Senior functional consultant:
These are experienced resource, they have grip on more than one module of dynamics Ax. These guys are usually involves in finalizing the requirements. They also responsibly discussion with joiner consultant and solve their queries against certain problems. These guys are second level decision making for customization if certain business process does not meet with out of box functionality. These individuals are domain specific as per particular modules for example public sector or supply chain management.
Basically they are responsibly of leading other functional consultant and taking care of organization level implementation of Dynamics Ax 2012. Sometimes client sign off also in their part of responsibilities.
Technical consultant:
These are extra ordinary individuals (Because I am part of this group), who are responsible for Customization, alteration and integration of Dynamics Ax 2012. Basically they have strong technical guys who have software development background. Microsoft dynamics Ax offers extensive customization, integrations, So Usually .net developers are easily convertible to these technical consultant.
As per my observation Microsoft Dynamics AX Technical consultant can be divided into three to four Major roles
Enterprise portal customization. These guys have Share point expertise as well as understanding of Dynamics AX. They develop customization which are used in enterprise portal of Dynamics Ax 2012.
BI and Report development and Customization.
These technical consultant have experienced in Business intelligence ie. Data extraction, Cubes and report development. They are responsible of customization and new development of Reports both data mart comes with dynamics Ax, out of Dynamics Ax for example retail BI and normal SSRS reports for Dynamics AX.
Integration Consultant:
These guys have experience with Integration and data migration. They integrate Dynamics Ax with any other system. They are responsible of understanding of dynamics Ax and other system and then write solutions. They are experts in Application Integration framework of dynamics ax. They have responsibly for writing field mapping, transformation and technical detail documentation for integration. They are also responsible for writing EAI application using BizTalk server, SSIS packages to integrate or migrate data from AX and other systems.
Customization Consultant:
These guys are expert in Dynamics Ax form development, workflow customization with respect to Requirement or functional design document brings form functional development.
Infrastructure consultant:
These guys understand the client organization requirement for example number of users, processing requirement and then suggest the infrastructure for Microsoft Dynamics Ax for best performance. For example how many server require, how the server handle the client session as well as what will be back plan when one or more server down. These guys have Network as well as database administrator background. These guys make solid foundation on which whole building of ERP implemenation stands. These guys appears in initial phase of ERP implementation. In later part they deploy the latest patches on dev, QA and production. And ensure the code migration from QA environment to Production environment. When ERP is in production, they also took timely back up Database of ERP.
Senior technical consultant:
These are guys responsible for development customization of Dynamics AX or all above mention roles. They are architect of customization for Dynamics Ax and new custom module development. They usually communicate with functional consultant. Understand their requirements and communicate it to other developers.
Techno functional consultant:
These mythical guys are those who had deep knowledge of out of the box functionality of ERP and Technical side of ERP. There is myth that when you worked three or more years in technical side of ERP you are starting grow on functional side. Mythical attributes of techno functional are used to suppress both technical and functional guys by Management. According to management techno functional consultant have plug and play functionality. When there is need to functional consultant, they act as functional consultant. And when there is need of technical consultant they act as technical consultant. Something like these guys are shape shifter. Truly speaking these are sharp guys who can tackle the other guys.