Today, Fortude is one of the world’s leading Infor ERP service providers, delivering complex implementations for large-scale enterprises across four key markets, including the Americas and Canada, the UK and Europe, AMEA, and ANZ. But at the heart of that success lies a simple conviction: the strength of its ERP consulting practice that rests entirely on its people.
Manindra Dharmadasa, Vice President of Global Infor Consulting at Fortude, has been part of this story since its inception, joining as an intern and reaching the top of the practice. He shared with Echelon how the company translates ‘people orientation’ to achieve success across Fortude’s global establishment.
ERP has been through significant transformation over the last decade. Having watched that evolution up close, what do you think drove the most meaningful shifts?
Three key shifts stand out. The first is the move from ‘on-premises architecture’ to the ‘cloud’. Historically, clients owned and managed their own infrastructure. Today, that burden has shifted to solution providers, freeing enterprises to focus on outcomes rather than hardware.
The second is the rise of industry-specific, packaged solutions. Early ERP platforms offered vast libraries of functionality that many clients struggled to fully utilise. The industry responded by developing tailored “in-a-box” solutions built around the needs of specific sectors. Fortude, for instance, has drawn on its implementation experience to develop solutions for Fashion and Food & Beverage clients, delivering faster rollouts and improved ROI.
The third and most consequential one is the integration of AI and automation into the ERP stack. This shift is actively compressing the delivery lifecycle, replacing manual processes across solutioning, documentation, and testing with automated workflows. It is still gathering momentum, but its impact on how ERP is designed, delivered, and maintained over the next few years will be profound.
Delivering consistently across different markets is challenging. How do you build quality and transfer knowledge so that clients receive the same standard across regions?
You can have the best software in the world, but if you don’t have the right people with experience to understand the requirement, configure the solution, test it, and train clients/users on how to use it effectively, the propensity for failure is high. ERP delivery is a knowledge-intensive industry.
That’s why we invest heavily in building that knowledge from the ground up. Our structured graduate trainee programme brings in candidates with the right blend of business acumen and technical aptitude, followed by an intensive three-month training curriculum covering both technical skills and client-facing behaviours, led by consultants with years of cross-regional delivery experience.
But that investment doesn’t stop at onboarding. Technology evolves constantly, and ERP consultants must evolve with it. It’s not only about acquiring new knowledge but being willing to unlearn approaches that no longer serve the work. We’ve built a strong learning culture at Fortude where knowledge is actively captured, shared, and built upon across teams and markets. That culture, as much as any methodology or tool, is what ensures our clients receive a consistent standard regardless of where in the world they engage us.
There’s a constant pull between the deep expertise of seasoned consultants and fresh thinking from newer talent. How do you strike that balance?
It comes down to intentional team design. We deliberately mix junior and senior consultants on most engagements. Juniors gain real-world exposure alongside experienced hands, while seniors bring the credibility that comes from saying “I’ve solved this before, in a very similar situation”.
But the exchange goes both ways. Seniors bring process depth; juniors bring the willingness to challenge it. On one recent project, a junior consultant from an automation background questioned why the team was still preparing test data and documentation manually. He built a simple script that automated the process and cut the effort nearly in half, freeing the team to focus on higher-value work and accelerating the overall timeline. That kind of thinking doesn’t come from experience. It comes from a perspective that hasn’t yet been shaped by convention.
You’re a passionate wildlife photographer. Has that time spent observing and waiting in nature changed how you approach leadership?
Wildlife is unpredictable. You can study patterns, build instincts, but you never truly know what an elephant or a leopard will do next in the wild. People are the same. Personal circumstances, stress, life outside of work — all of it shapes how someone shows up, performs at work, and no single approach works for everyone.
Photography has also deepened my patience. You can sit in the same spot for hours waiting for the perfect shot. Leadership asks for the same thing. You listen, you give feedback, and then you give people the space and time to grow.
When you look at where enterprise technology and global consulting is headed, what excites or concerns you most?
Honestly, it’s more excitement than concern. What I’m watching closely is how Automation, AI, and ERP find their ideal working relationship, because ERP has never been a pure software development play. Getting users to change their mindset, training them, sharing previous experiences/best practices and understanding their requirements/grievances is inherently human work.
Technology isn’t replacing the human core of our work; it’s giving us the tools to vastly improve our customers’ experiences and deliver solutions much faster to them. Because of this, we can now pour our energy into the areas that have always differentiated great consultants: identifying key business problems, taking the time to understand not just what a client asks for but what they actually need for the future of their business, and guiding them through the best possible change management approach. That, to me, is why the future is so exciting.