Staffers at RPI Consultants spent six years building a tool that can automatically check a firm’s ERP system for bugs and teach employees how to use it. For the latest Weekly Briefing, we took a look at the technical details with RPI Consultants’ director of marketing. Over in the private equity sector, a new advisory firm is using AI for deal sourcing. Plus, CoreX refreshed its brand and a software vendor gave us a glimpse into management consultancies’ internal operations. 

Speeding up ERP tests. Before a company rolls out a new ERP system or upgrades its existing deployment, engineers must verify that the change won’t cause technical issues. RPI Consultants built an application called Dokimi to ease the task for clients. The software, which is named after the Greek word for “test,” doubles as an ERP training tool. 

“Unlike general-purpose or open-source testing tools that often require extensive coding, customization, and manual updates, Dokimi delivers a ready-to-use, ERP-embedded solution,” Michaela Fallon, RPI Consultants’ director of marketing, told Boardroom Insight. “It includes over 1,600 pre-built scripts that are automatically updated as the ERP rolls out application changes.”

RPI Consultants, whose main focus is helping companies deploy and maintain Infor’s popular ERP platform, says that Dokimi also eases certain other tasks. That includes the process of analyzing system test results. The software “tracks pass/fail rates for every script, and points users to relevant resources to resolve flagged issues early,” Fallon detailed. “The firm says that the end result is a decrease in testing overhead for IT teams.

ServiceNow consulting firm CoreX launches a rebrand. The move follows the acquisition of two other consultancies that likewise focused on the software vendor’s popular work management platform. ServiceNow started out as a platform that IT teams used to perform day-to-day tasks such as answering support tickets. Today, the platform also covers a long list of non-IT use cases. That feature expansion has created new revenue opportunities for the firm’s consulting partners. 

“We’re moving from an era where generalist IT consultancies could succeed to one where functional, deep platform expertise and industry specialization are table stakes,” CoreX chief executive officer Rick Wright told Boardroom Insight. “Our rebrand reflects this reality.”

“We’ve evolved from a boutique specialist to a global consultancy that can deliver Big Four scale while maintaining the agility and innovation that the platform demands,” added Wright, who earlier built Big Four firm KPMG’s first ServiceNow systems integration practice. “What makes our approach fresh is that we’re not trying to be everything to everyone. We’re 100% focused on unlocking trapped value in core business operations through ServiceNow.”

Deal sourcing gets an AI boost. Fortis M&A Partners is a newly launched advisory firm that helps investment firms source deal opportunities. It plans to go about the task with the help of a custom AI engine dubbed DealForge. Blake Collins, the consultancy’s founder and managing partner, gave Boardroom Insight a closer look at the technology. 

“DealForge is Fortis’ proprietary sourcing framework built to deliver private equity firms, independent sponsors, and family offices a faster path to high-quality, founder-aligned opportunities,” Collins detailed. “In a market where deal flow can be crowded with mismatched or over-shopped assets, DealForge filters early and deeply.”

Fortis M&A Partners expects the framework to provide several benefits for clients. It “reduces wasted diligence time, improves close rates, and strengthens relationships with founders by ensuring every conversation has a clear fit,” Collins said. 

Making management consultancies more productive. Kantata is a software vendor that formed in January when investment firm Accel-KKR merged two of its portfolio companies. Its platform is used by professional services firms for project management and sales forecasting. Kantata recently closed a five-year deal renewal with Arthur D. Little, a large management consultancy, and Boardroom Insight took the opportunity to get a closer look at this space. We were curious how management consultancies, which often advise enterprises on IT modernization, approach their own digital transformation efforts.

Such consultancies use Kantata to “bring consistency to the complex task of delivering dozens — sometimes hundreds — of client-facing, revenue generating projects at once,” a company spokesperson explained. That workflow encompasses activities such as determining which staffers should work on what project and tracking financial performance metrics. Historically, consultants performed such tasks manually, which meant errors could find their way into the process.

Kantata says that replacing manual processes with software can produce tangible financial benefits for advisory firms. The company spokesperson cited a study from a major market research provider that found “significant gains in billable utilization, project margins, and back-office efficiency,” for Kanta clients. “These improvements came from visibility into live resourcing and financial data, automation of expense and billing processes, and the ability to proactively address risks,” the spokesperson said.

The big story: Aprio closes its ninth acquisition of the year. The 2,100-person professional services firm recently bought New Jersey-based DeFalco & Co to grow its accounting business. Aprio chief executive officer Richard Kopelman explained the rationale behind the acquisition to Boardroom Insight and discussed the benefits to clients.