The Consultancy Process Map, How Things Should Work

Because the area of consultancy services is so broad and there are more companies today than ever before offering to consult with you about almost anything, it can be difficult to differentiate between what’s worth it, and what’s not. There are probably 3 key services that all business should seriously consider using, including finance, law, and of course, IT, here’s a look at how the process should go when you employ a consultant in order to help you move your business forward:

Information based on your vision

Granted, the whole idea of employing a consultant for something like IT consulting is to advise you and, sometimes people don’t know what they want or, even what they need. As such consultants often find that their initial meetings are one of a non-formal, get to know you and your business information gathering exercises. Generally speaking, although most business owners don’t know the specifics of what they want, they do know where they would like to end up.

Knowing where you would like to be is superb, it means you have a goal and a purpose to motivate you, how you get there though is where your consultant can offer real value. They should be able to offer you information based upon your vision within your initial meeting, the more time consuming, finer details are something that the consultant would work on after your meeting and come and then come back to you to get your input.

Identifying problems

Problems are nothing short of blasphemy to most business owners’ ears and can affect their behavior. They are not needed, nor are they something that should consume any more of your time than they need to. There is a saying that goes something like ‘please don’t bring me problems, I have enough of those, please bring me solutions then, we can talk’. It’s kind of a fair request, it’s not like you employ people to give you problems, it should be the complete opposite!

Your consultant should understand this before you even meet although, it is an area that will need a discussion and perhaps a brainstorming session to get a much better idea of how they can provide solutions for your business moving forward. You might want to assign one of your managers in this part of the process as although it’s crucial, it’s not essential that your time is taken up, unless you’re a one-man band, or sole trader.

Assessment and recommendations

For most business owners, this is the first stage where they tend to be fully engaged, they’ve already talked about the stuff that holds them back, now they can get some proposed solutions. Usually there are new ideas and processes brought to the table, however, there will likely be some that were chewed over already, but perhaps they were dismissed. It’s an interesting time for all because this is the first real stage of action and one where you’d start to see what your consultant is capable of.

Implementation

Sometimes, even though one or more of the areas discussed in the assessment and recommendations haven’t been attempted before by the business purely through lack of knowledge, or experience. Now you have the solutions, your consultant should help you to put them into practice.