Professional Consulting Services

The first thing many employees are told when being hired straight out of college is either “that is not the way we do it here” or believe it or not “forget what you have learned we will show you how it is done.”  Yes, college is about the theories and concepts the basics to business, but from the start these employees are told to do as we do.  Years ago I was told, “if you follow the corporate rules and screw up your good as gold, if you take your own path and foul up your are gone!”

I am afraid I am one of those folks that when something was wrong I have to straighten it out.  I saved the corporation millions of dollars and was later brought into groups that could not think out of the box.  Their first comment was “that’s the way it has always been done.”

I have seen Vice Presidents that took a risk and lost huge bonuses, never again would they take a risk.  I have also talked to lawyers that would rather do nothing that commit to a decision. ”If I make a decision and make a mistake, I am at fault, if I do nothing at all how can I be blamed,” they would say.

With actions like that it is no wonder consultants are needed.  The credo for consultants is make a difference and make it big,   Doing big things will get us re-hired again.”

Sadly, not all consulting efforts payoff.  Millions of dollars can be lost to poorly defined and implemented projects.  Consulting companies can get in over their heads losing big money for the contracting company.

To appropriately manage a project companies need internal experts to watch after investments.  Consultants are looking for revenue and without oversight you may pay more than you should.  Training your team and building internal consultants insures most of your hard earned money stays with your company.

When employees understand they can make and difference and are expected to speak up the flood gates open and ideas flow about underperforming machines, lack of inventory, poor vendor parts or weak processes in need of improvement.  Your employees are the eyes and ears of the company and often know what is wrong more than anyone else.  That is where consultants find all the problems from your employees.

What you need is people that know how to follow the rules and when to break them.  That is one of the best ways to out maneuver your competition. 

Many companies out there are looking for Top 5 and Top 4 consulting professionals for their projects.  What the do not realize is that these elite companies are not made up of exclusive standalone consulting professionals  They are a team of experts.  They all have their proprietary consulting methodology and are experts at mentoring and coaching new young talent.  When contracts are completed it is for the project, not for specific talent from the pool.

A project lead is a mature individual, sometimes a partner or at least a partner is responsible for the project along with others.  The project lead coordinates one or more projects depending on thier size and pulls in experts.  Often projects make use of internal talent even if it means some minor mentoring since it lowers the overhead of the consulting firm and is not seen as an overst financial burden to the client.

As the project starts a proposal is usually developed the is several inches thick that defines the project and its scope.  It is a boiler plate, a print out of pages from their tool along with information gained from the client project sponsor.  No mistakes here they make sure they are talking to the person with the purse strings.  It only makes sense.  In the proposal is the overall scope of the project with intended outcomes.  Initial investigation of the project may entail cash up front for the analysis and clearer definition of the project.

However, as the project gets going, the project lead will pull in experts from the team.  Experts that have a charge rate of hundreds of dollars per hour.  They are experts in production, inventory control, finance, marketing and about anything else you might imagine.  Most of the project team is made up of your employees and newbees straight out of college.  The newbees after setting in on a process several times are expected to follow the performance on the next project.  As the continue working with the firm they move through more more phases of the methodology and with success earn more and in turn provide a greater return for the consulting company.

As impressed as you may feel you are with the work of these firms remember they are a production center.  A very good production center.  There job is to efficiently and cost effectively make the best possible use of thier talent and use the least expensive talent when ever possible.

What you want is not a Top 4 or Top 5 consulatant, what you are looking for is the composite of the team and it rarely exists in one person.

In my consulting experiences findin the root cause of a problem was one thing, but they determing how the root cause evolved is a whole different issue.  As an example your car suddenly stops working.  You have gas, the battary is good, but it is hot and the engine appears to be frozen.  The root cause for it not working you find is it is out of oil and has frozen up.  You replace the engine and after several thousand dollars and 3,000 miles you take it in for an oil change where the same inexperience high school kid more focused on the lastest computer game changes your oil while chatting with his girl friend.

I think you get the idea.  Some consultants stop when the find the problem and fix it.  Managers often lacking sufficent skills need mentoring, coaching or flat out training in business concepts so that they can make the best decisions.  With few exceptions when consulting I look to the organization leadership to see how the management process could be strengthened.  Consultants can be expensive and if they are mentoring and coaching your team they will be back before you know it.

Consultants that are looking out for you push training, mentoring and coaching.  They consider success with you as a story that runs quickly through the community.  They provide more for less making them cost effective.