Beata Leyland
Business Owner & Author of this article
How is it that some companies thrive after hiring consultants, and some lose plenty of money and time and don’t get much out of it?
Intrigued ?
Why do companies hire consultants in the first place ?
How to not lose money using consulting services ?
Real life case studies
When and how should you seek help when you have a problem which cannot be solved by your own team?
For many, solutions in such cases involve hiring an external consultant with fresh eyes who looks at the processes and will be able to solve bottlenecks and speed up company development.
Above all is a theory of why, how and when companies decide to hire external help on a temporary basis.
How is it that some companies thrive after hiring consultants, and some lose plenty of money and time and don’t get much out of it?
As a consulting company I will walk you through a 3 the most popular scenarios to show you how to use consulting services to the best of your advantage and not be used by the consultant.
Company grows very fast and to keep up needs to hire someone very experienced to help not only with daily work but also with solving problems with inventory or distribution.
That’s a classic example of service in the supply chain.
Company Alpha assumes that as an experienced person the consultant will come and see all holes and fix them just because.
This approach means that the consultant can do it, but it will take him/her way more time to do so because even a super experienced person needs some baseline from you and guidelines.
If you simply assume that you pay and the rest will be done and you don’t care how, bear in mind that your employees might be very cautious to show him/her all dirt from under the carpet as it might reflect bad on them.
In order to truly fix holes and define gaps, trust needs to be established or input from manager/company owner to create clear goals.
When “clear goals” means “everything that’s wrong”, a very experienced person can spend months or years at your workplace.
Lack of guidance and preparation from your side is the first mistake which many companies make.
They need help as soon as possible and were waiting until the last moment to ask for it.
When the help is there, the person gets an enormous number of tasks and instead of focusing on critical tasks is involved in all.
As a company hiring a consultant you waste your time as many small gaps could be solved by your own employees while major problems will be solved.
Company Beta hires a consultant to audit production.
Enterprise provides reports so certain conclusions can be formulated, but people from the company don’t have time to cooperate with the consultant.
How many times do companies hire external help which adds a tremendous amount of unwanted work on their own employees.
Such tasks are done fast and sloppy, and
as a result you can have the best consultant but no results because you did your homework to help the consultant but not your team.
As an employee I saw it so many times, and many times I was assigned to help auditors and I’ll tell you it was always done in such a rush that it wasn’t a surprise that not much changed after such contract/help.
Company Delta hires a consultant to review distribution.
Owner/Management prepared for the consultant clear goals and objectives, an experienced employee from your company was delegated to help for 2-3 hours per day.
It sounds like a path to success and for many it is but imagine if 3rd parties don’t want to cooperate.
Another reason why companies fail while hiring consultants is because of communication issues.
If you need such help, you need to inform people about it, prepare your team at least a bit, and don’t assume that only because of experience will the person fix all your problems within a month.
It can happen but you need to prepare her/him tools to do so.
Using external services truly helps, but the key is preparation from both sides.
Do it out of respect for your time and money.
With great preparation, the consultant can start working almost immediately and help you faster than you think.
The consulting world uses plenty of great solutions which could help you.
Company Gamma did all what they could with preparing materials for consultants, delegating employees and communicating with 3rd party providers,
but results are far away from being good. Why?
You need to communicate with your consultant, raise your concerns, and make sure that solutions are tailored to your needs.
A good consultant will be very proactive and would like to show you as many options as possible,
but it’s up to you to set boundaries, define lines, and make sure you get help with what is needed.
It’s very common that when solving one issue, a new one even more important pops up.
Make sure you are on top of it and help target exactly the bottlenecks which are crucial so you can grow without major disruptions.
Treat your consultant with respect, be candid, and create an atmosphere where both sides can be frank,
and I can guarantee you that you will get way more than you expect.
What we do is first have a screening call.
All these points are mentioned as we want to be honest with you and make sure that you and your team are prepared to work with us.
Our team guides you where to start, how to prepare a baseline so you know what you can expect in terms of outcome.
The more transparent you are, the better outcome for you.
If you are searching for a reliable consulting firm with an ethical approach and excellent communication skills,
just text us and schedule a free consultation.
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