Activant Expert Articles: What Consulting Can Bring to Your Business

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I found this article this morning on Activant's website.  The article is from several months ago, but very interesting nonetheless!

http://distribution.activant.com/press/consulting-your-business.html

[DonQuixote]

In my experience Consultants have been at best a mixed bag.   Yes, they bring in new ideas and a fresh view point and can result in increased productivity and may well be worth their fees.  On the other hand, far too often management fails to recognizes the talent, insights, and professionals they currently have.  And worse, they "do feel" they must implement whatever the consultant proposes even if it is disruptive and unproductive to their business.     Trust your employees, they do have an investment in the business and their recommendation may just be "to hire a consultant" but for a very specific purpose.

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You've brought up some interesting points.  First, any consultant that makes recommendations that are "disruptive and unproductive to the business" either doesn't have the best interests of the business in mind or hasn't done a very good job.  Also please consider that sometimes consultants are asked to solve a problem without being given an opportunity to understand the whole picture.  It then becomes a walk on a tightrope to a) verify and corroborate the understanding of the problem, b) determine the most applicable solution based on the information known at a particular point, c) do it all within what is regularly a restrictive budget, and d) avoid stepping in the political poo.

I agree with you that employees do have an investment in the business, but in many situations - and I'm sorry if this comes across as harsh, but - why do many not act like it?  In the worst cases, there are those employees that "put in their 40" and never really know - or care - what their contribution does or doesn't do for the business.  In other cases, staff members actively work against each other to try to protect territory, all the while not considering that by doing so they themselves may be disruptive to the overall vision of the organization, potentially triggering negative side effects to their own future.

But that attitude is not limited to employees.  Consultants, especially those in large(r) consulting-organization frameworks, are often encouraged to keep the billable time up even if it's not in the best interest of the client.  There is no impetus for understanding the big picture as long as the billable consultant gets their quota of billable time.  And make no mistake about it, we believe that attitude is DEAD WRONG.

So at the risk of sounding like a pitch, this is exactly what I say that we are building relationships with results.  Certainly we want to bring in fresh ideas and increased productivity, but those are merely elements of our end goal of producing real, tangible, and overwhelmingly positive results every time.