Consultancy management

1. CONSULTANCY MANAGEMENT

2. What is Management Consulting?
• It is the practice of helping organizations
improve their performance through analysis of
existing organizational problems and
development of plans for improvement.
• Examples are
• HR consultants: specializing in HR
• ISO Consultants: specializing in the process of
ISO certification.

3. Why are management consultants
needed?
• Management Consultants are needed by firms
who wish to bring about some improvement
in their organizations or are facing a problem
and wish to solve it.
• Management Consultants are hired by firms to
gain external advice and the consultants’
specialized expertise.

4. • Since the consultants are exposed to and have
relationships with many organizations, they
are aware of the best practices in the industry,
which the firm can use.

5. What do consultants do?
• Provide organizational change management
assistance.
• Development of coaching skills
• Technological implementation
• Strategy development skills
• Operational improvement services.
• Consultants have their own methodology of
identifying problems which form the basis of
recommendations for improvement.

6. Functions of a Consultant
• Providing information to the client
• Solving a client’s problems
• Making a diagnosis which may necessitate
redefinition of the problem
• Making recommendations based on diagnosis
• Assisting with the implementation of the
recommended actions

7. • Building a consensus and commitment around
the corrective actions.
• Facilitating client learning.
• Permanently improving organizational
effectiveness.

8. Difference between a consultant and
an advisor
• Although to a layman, both seem to be the
same, there is a difference between
consultants and advisors.
• A consultant is called when the firm has a
clear cut problem in need of a solution,
whereas an advisor is called when the firm has
already thought of several solutions and is not
sure which one to adopt.

9. • Consultants are problem solvers. They excel at
developing and selling ideas and can be great
simplifiers. Advisors are better problem
definers than problem solvers. They often
broaden the view of the clients. They
contribute to strengthening the client’s
capacity to solve problems.

10. • Advisors can provide early warning about
emerging problems which are often missed by
the consultants because of their sharp focus
on solving the problem at hand.

11. Why are Consultants Used
• 1. Achieving Organizational Purposes and
Objectives:
• Organizations, when they hire a consultant,
generally have the purpose of getting help in
achieving their business, social or other
objectives.
• These goals may be sectoral leadership,
competitive advantage, corporate excellence,
profitability, effectiveness, growth etc.

12. • Whatever the purpose may be, but the fact
remains that consulting has to add value to
the client organization.
• At times the job of the consultant may be to
advise client on how to maintain status quo or
even how to get out of business.

13. • 2. Solving Management and Business Problems:
• The most common purpose of hiring a consultant
is to help managers and decision makers with
problem solving.
• In this context, the consultant’s task is described
as professional assistance in identifying,
diagnosing and solving problems concerning
various areas of management and business.

14. • 3. Identifying and Seizing new Opportunities:
• Consultants are also used to identify new
opportunities .
• Consultants are regarded as a source of
valuable information and ideas that can be
turned into a wide range of initiatives like
developing new markets, improving quality,
becoming more useful to customers, finding
new business contacts.

15. • 4. Enhancing Learning:
• In the modern concept of consulting, this
dimension is omnipresent.
• Many clients turn to consultants not only to
find a solution to a specific problem, but also
to acquire the consultant’s special technical
knowledge and the methods used in doing so.

16. • 5. Implementing Changes:
• Consultants are often known as change
agents.
• They help client organizations to understand
change, live with change and make changes
needed to survive and be successful in an
environment where continuous change is the
only constant.

17. How are Consultants Used?
• There are ten principle ways in which consultants are
used:
• 1. Providing Information: Quite often, more complete
and more relevant information is the only need of a
client to make the right decisions.
• The consulting firm may have this information already
available with it, or it may know where to find it.
• There is no consulting that does not involve working
with and providing information.
• But in providing this information, consultants have to
distinguish between what information can be given and
what cannot be given to a client.

18. • 2. Providing Specialist Resources:
• In some cases, expertise is required for a short
term. In other cases, there are organizational
constraints about hiring experts .
• This is where consultants are used .
• A special case is interim management. In this
client firms borrow staff members of
consulting firms to occupy a position in their
management hierarchy on a temporary basis.

19. • 3. Establishing business contacts and linkages:
• Many clients take the help of consultants to
search for new business contacts,
representatives, agents etc.
• The consultant’s task is to identify one or more
suitable candidate from among the available
alternatives, depending upon the suitability of
the candidate.
• The consultant also advises the client on the
conditions of alliance or business deal.

20. • 4. Providing Expert Opinion: The consultant
may be approached to provide expert opinion
in cases where the client has many
alternatives.
• Consultants may also be invited to act as an
expert witness, testifying witness in lawsuits
or arbitrations calling for specialized
knowledge.

21. • 5. Doing Diagnostic Work : Clients use
consultants for a wide range of diagnostic
tasks concerning the organization’s strength
and weakness, potential for improvement,
barriers to change etc.

22. • 6. Developing Action Proposals: The diagnosis
is followed by development work in any
organization.
• The consultant may be asked to do the whole
job, share the task with the client or act as an
advisor to the client who has undertaken to
take the developmental work.

23. • 7. Developing Systems and Methods: The
consultant may be asked to develop systems and
methods for a client in his field of expertise.
• These fields may be organization development,
management information, business planning,
operations scheduling and control.
• Traditionally, consultants develop one or more of
these areas as their field of operation.

24. • 8. Planning and managing organizational Change:
When organizational changes are inevitable and the
client does not have the necessary skills or expertise to
undertake it, they turn to the consultant for help.
• The consultant may provide expertise and advice both
on specific methods and techniques that are being
changed.
• They also advise on how to deal with the interpersonal
relations , conflicts, motivation problems that arise as a
result of the change undertaken.

25. • 9. Training and Developing Management Staff:
• The client may need to be trained in the new
methods and techniques provided by the
consultant.
• This may be undertaken as a distinct client
service or in conjunction with and in support
of other services.

26. • 10. Counseling and Coaching: management
consultants can render an excellent service to
managers and entrepreneurs who need
strictly personal feedback on their leadership
style, behavior, work habits.
• Personal counseling is necessarily a one to one
relationship based on trust and respect.
• It can be informal and should be strictly
confidential.

27. The Consulting Process
• Whenever there is a consulting intervention,
the client and consultant undertake certain
activities required to achieve the desired goal.
• These activities are known as consulting
process.
• This relationship has a clear beginning and a
clear end.
• Between the beginning and end, the process
can be divided into many phases.

28. • There are many ways of subdividing the
intervening process. One of them is as under.
• It contains the following phases:
• - Entry
• - Diagnosis
• - Action Planning
• - Implementation
• - Termination

29. • Entry:
• In this phase, the consultant starts working with
the client.
• This is a preparatory and planning phase and lays
the foundation for everything that will follow.
• This phase includes the fist contact, discussions
on what the client would like to achieve, the
clarifications of their respective roles, the
negotiations and agreement of a consulting
contract.

30. • 2. Diagnosis: This phase is an in depth
diagnosis of the problem at hand.
• During this phase, the consultant and the
client cooperate in identifying the sort of
change required, defining in detail the goals to
be achieved, and assessing the client’s
performance, resources, needs and
perspectives.

31. • 3. Action Planning: This phase aims at finding
the solution to the problem.
• It includes work on one or several alternatives,
the evaluation of alternatives, the elaboration
of plan for implementing changes, and
presentation of proposal to the client.
• Action planning requires imagination and
creativity as well as a systematic approach in
identifying feasible alternatives.

32. • 4. Implementation: This is the phase where
the changes proposed start taking shape.
• This is also one of the most testing phases
because this is the phase where things begin
to happen either as planned or differently.
• Unforeseen problems arise and faulty
assumptions are uncovered.
• The original design and action plan may need
corrections and rectifications.

33. • 5. Termination: This is the final phase in the consulting
process and includes several activities.
• The consultant’s performance during the assignment is
evaluated by both the client and the consulting firm.
• Final reports are presented and discussed.
• Mutual commitments are settled.
• If they want to pursue the relationship further,
agreements are drawn up.
• Once these activities are completed, the consulting
assignment is terminated.

34. The Consulting Assignment
• A typical consulting assignment’s scope includes:
• - The purpose to be achieved
• - the expertise to be provided by the consultant
• - the nature and sequence of tasks to be
undertaken by the consultant
• - the client’s participation in the assignment.
• - the resources required
• - the timetable
• - the price to be paid
• - other conditions as appropriate.

35. Contact us
Parveen Kumar Chadha… THINK TANK
(Founder and C.E.O of Saxbee Consultants)
Email :-saxbeeconsultants@gmail.com
Mobile No. +91-9818308353
Address:-First Floor G-20(A), Kirti Nagar, New Delhi India Postal
Code-110015
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