Business owners are expected to have a broad range of skills, with perhaps some specialties. However, changes within and outside the business can create a need that cannot be met with the existing skills required in the business. When that occurs, employing a consultant can provide the skills necessary to identify challenges, offer advice, and propose practical solutions.
Consulting is a relationship in which an outsider makes his or her skills, knowledge, and experience available to an enterprise in an advisory role, including implementation. The keyword here is implementation – the outcome/s of any consulting project must be implementable.
Effective Consultants give expert advice to organisations; they provide information, solve problems, and unravel business challenges.
What can a Consultant do for you?
Effective Consultants give expert advice to organisations; they provide information, solve problems, and unravel business challenges. They help to build consensus and commitment around corrective action, facilitate client learning, and permanently improve organisational effectiveness. They also help businesses realise latent opportunities, diagnose, and redefine challenges and opportunities as well as recommend and implement actions.
Why does an organisation engage a Consultant?
Majority of businesses are beginning to understand the significant value of engaging a consultant and for this reason, companies are constantly in need of one. Consultants are needed to provide temporary assistance, objective review, in-house education, problem/opportunity identification, and resolution. Consulting needs also include initiating change, obtaining funding, selecting key personnel, providing executive assistance, government regulatory assistance, and socio-economic/political change.
Businesses on the verge of hitting rock bottom owing to economic recessions, pandemics, high taxation, high-interest rates, or excessive regulations need a consultant that can pull together expertise and experience to help rebuild or resuscitate the business.
A Consultant can change the narratives and redirect the course of these businesses, by providing a mapped-out plan that can help turn the business around and stand the test of time.
It is worthy to note that Consultants, don’t become experts in their fields like magic; they put forth a perspective based on their level of skills, knowledge, and experience working with different companies and on several projects from best practices to pitfalls. With their experience, they bring new and innovative ideas or possible challenges to the table that business owners probably wouldn’t have been able to see on their own. They tell business owners what they need to know about their business from an objective perspective.
What are the Roles of the Consultant?
Having defined a need for consulting help, we then consider the Consultant’s role in addressing these needs. Since Consultants are not committed to a single firm, they bring experience from a variety of companies and industries, which allows them to offer creative solutions and enable divergent thinking.
A Consultant can play the role of a:
- Coach,
- Expert,
- Facilitator,
- Mentor, and
In practice, the Consultant’s project role is typically a combination of Number 2 (the Expert in the room) plus one of the others. With a passion and drive for excellence, they align employee performance with the organisation’s goals and objectives, keeping them on track by measuring their individual performance as it relates to the organization’s goals, and importantly, they help understand and satisfy the organisation’s customers and key stakeholders.
What Type of Consultant may be Required?
In practice, most small businesses require a specialist with capabilities in selected area(s) or a Game Changer with game-changing answers that no-one else can provide, occasionally a Vendor with Adequate performance + Low cost + No hassle and rarely a Total Solution Provider– used by the largest organisations.
Conclusion
As you can see, there is a lot to consider on why you might need a Consultant. Although many business owners and managers are aware of the benefits Consultants bring, some balk at the idea of hiring one due to lack of trust, fear of incompetency, or the need for the company to save more money. And I contend that many of the ‘bad consultant’ stories we hear are as a result of not giving these considerations due care and attention.
The benefits far outweigh the fears and since Consultants support companies in immeasurable ways, hiring a consultant is a worthy investment.
So, your first decision is to make an ‘in principle’ decision on whether or not to engage a consultant to address the needs that you have.
If you have any questions, then please complete the form.
