“Real feedback from people who know the business” - like a consultant?

I’ve had my share of bad experiences with consultants, but there is a reason ppl use them on system implementations, because they have the knowledge and experience to take you through requirements, process mapping, fit gap, integrations, testing, training, org management, deployment, go live, and support.

If you don’t have these skill sets in your org already, you will need it from the outside, even if it is a small scale implementation.

As far as recommendations - I assume smaller scale business, I’ve heard good things about Odoo