Consulting per my past experience I have seen and
lived thru can be classified broadly into three areas viz Strategy, Tactical
and Operations …
In each of the above three, the needs that can be
met can be further classified as Executive Management Needs, Enterprise Needs
and Functional Needs
Further to the above 3 x 3 classification the depth
is drilled down to seven levels…. Level 0 to Level 6
Before we drill down further, let’s define who a
consultant is… a consultant is "an expert in a particular field who works
as an adviser either to a company or to another individual."
Management Consulting
Management consulting is the
practice of helping organizations to improve their performance, operating
primarily through the analysis of existing organizational problems and the
development of plans for improvement.
The target audience usually are C-Level and Sr.
Management. Focus areas usually are to help improve the business TopLine,
Cashflow and BottomLine. The consulting output is typically a business case and
a roadmap that helps make key investment decisions that impact the organization
performance, brand, growth (organic / inorganic) and key financial parameters.
Study and recommendations often revolves as defined
below. Again, this is purely my approach, there are multiple ways and means one
addresses the situation. This is one I have seen working the most per my past
experience…
For example, we are working with a client “XYZ
Inc.” and have to help them identify areas of improvement to help grow the
business. The study includes the following four possibilities:
- XYZ Inc does and the Competition also does: The consultant studies various processes, products, service lines etc… analyses the financial statements, tries to identify areas of efficiency improvement and provides recommendations.
- XYZ
Inc. does and the Competition does not: The
consultant in this scenario after the study and analysis of various
processes, product and service lines help address the factors on what XYZ
Inc. is doing is good as per the market forces and carries the first mover
advantage or what XYZ Inc. is doing is not in par with market
expectations, and has to stop doing because it is no more required.
- XYZ
Inc. does not and the Competition does: This
is a vice-versa situation to the above example, after the study the
recommendations will be inline with what needs to be done and what need
not
- XYZ
Inc. does not and the Competition does not: This is a case where the consultant studies the near term future
requirements and demand of the market and prepares business case / roadmap
for XYZ Inc. to gear up to and be ready to address the market demand and
carry a first mover advantage.
In all the above four scenarios the company may
engage the consultant in any of or all three Strategy, Tactical and functional
areas and the depth depending on the time and cost one decides to invest can be
anywhere from Level0 to Level6.
Various value based frameworks like Financial
Analysis, BCG Matrix, Balance Scorecard, 7S. 7P, Porters five forces, SWOT,
Theory of Constraints etc…are most commonly used
Enterprise Consulting:
An Enterprise is but nothing a business or a firm
or an organization or can be simply a large scale project, there are multiple
definitions but they all carry a common combination of People + Process +
Technology.
The enterprise can be a Sole proprietorship, a
partnership, corporation, co-operative etc… and further be classified into
Small-Mid-Big.
Unlike the management consulting which focuses on
catering the needs of only Top Level executives and operates in a niche space,
Enterprise consulting covers the breadth and depth of an organization across
all three areas Strategy, Tactical and Operational.
Key focus of an Enterprise Architect is BIIDAT which stands for Business Process
Architecture, Information Architecture, Integration Architecture, Data
Architecture, Application Architecture and Technology Architecture. Beyond
which the consulting elements also cover the user adoption, transition and migration.
The consulting assignments can be incremental or
transformational in nature. The most famous framework in this area adopted is
TOGAF and Zachman along with various other change management and technology
frameworks covering Cost, Quality and Time are focused upon
Functional Consulting:
Functional consulting is the most prevalent area of
consulting many service and consulting organizations offer as a service to the
clients. A Functional Consultant is a person who is involved in the planning,
designing and oversight of a function or a key process area. It could be an
organisations enabling (Support) function like HR, Admin, Legal, Sales,
Service, Marketing… or a non-enabling function like Banking, Insurance,
Manufacturing, Supply chain etc…
Functional consultant is not generic business
consultant but an SME specialized in the area of practice to a particular
industry. What matters most in the functional consulting is the depth and
industry knowledge coupled with problem identification and solving ability
Depending on the client's needs and the
requirements, the spectrum of the Functional Consultant’s services may be
extensive (detailed document preparation and construction review) or less
inclusive (such as providing a list of possible solutions to a GAP or
incident).
There are various frameworks and tools depending on
the area of consulting the functional consultant operates in. Could be project
management tools, six sigma tools, lean and operation enhancement tools,
quality tools, in fact the diversified nature of services are so many that for
every offering the specialist consultant is equipped with a tool kit specific
to the problem area one is working upon.
Techno Functional consulting also requires one to
carry enough expertise w.r.t. solution architecture and technical architecture
if he/she is involved in the IT Space often termed as IT consulting which maps
the Technology with the Process to enable ease in doing business.
Consulting according to me is an art, thou there
are tools and techniques which help enable a consultant perform his job and
draw excellence which is more of a science, an added responsibility or what I
call as a trait of a good consultant is ability to play the role of a good
sales man. Now a days consulting and sales together as two in a box skill is
coined with a new area of consultative sales… which I will write in the coming
posts…
Happy reading, and in case you wish to write into
me for gathering more information or learn more about consulting, or interested
to shape a career into consulting or just for knowledge sharing feel free to
drop a note on rajesh.mohandas@gmail.com or whtsapp me +91 984 594
4896.
