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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Delivers the essential practical skills needed to consult and make sharp, well prepared interactions in a wide range of business situations
This comprehensive handbook covers the fundamental skills and attitudes required by successful consultants from novice to practitioner level, irrespective of their specialist area. It untangles the key variables present in any consulting service and introduces practical ways to improve their effectiveness based upon the author's experience of helping consulting organisations to develop and excel in the marketplace. The book explores consulting ‘from the ground up' steering away from theory and focusing instead on practical application, providing a solid platform upon which to build further domain-specific competence.
The Consultant's Handbook provides:
- An understanding of the key variables that can be addressed in order to improve one's own consulting performance
- A set of simple practices that can be implemented with immediate benefit to the reader
- Practical insight into day-to-day real life consulting interactions
- Confidence to implement the new ideas and approaches
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Seitenzahl: 255
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
INTRODUCTION
PART I: CONSULTING FUNDAMENTALS
CHAPTER ONE: WHAT IS CONSULTING?
CONSULTING: THE BASIC PROPOSITION
WHO IS QUALIFIED TO BE A CONSULTANT?
REPRESENTING A CONSULTING ORGANIZATION
ETHICS IN CONSULTING
CONSULTING VERSUS SELLING
CHAPTER SUMMARY
CHAPTER TWO: PREPARING TO CONSULT
BASIC PREPARATION
DETAILED PREPARATION
ENGAGEMENT-SPECIFIC PREPARATION
CHAPTER SUMMARY
CHAPTER THREE: ESTABLISHING CREDIBILITY
POSITIONING: THE PERSONAL INTRODUCTION
POSITIONING: THE CORPORATE INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER SUMMARY
CHAPTER FOUR: MANAGING CLIENT MEETINGS
SETTING THE MEETING OBJECTIVES
COMPOSING THE CONSULTING PARTICIPANT TEAM
AGREEING ON THE TEAM PLAN
STRUCTURING THE INTERACTION
CHAPTER SUMMARY
PART II: CASE STUDIES
CASE STUDY ONE: EXPLORING A NEW CONSULTING OPPORTUNITY
CASE SCENARIO
MEETING PREPARATION
EXPLORING AN OPPORTUNITY: THE SET-UP PHASE
EXPLORING AN OPPORTUNITY: THE MEETING BODY
EXPLORING AN OPPORTUNITY: THE CLIENT DIALOGUE
EXPLORING AN OPPORTUNITY: THE CLOSURE PHASE
THE MEETING OUTCOME
CHAPTER SUMMARY
CASE STUDY TWO: PRESENTING A SOLUTION APPROACH
CASE SCENARIO
MEETING PREPARATION
PRESENTING A SOLUTION APPROACH: THE SET-UP PHASE
PRESENTING A SOLUTION APPROACH: THE MEETING BODY
PRESENTING A SOLUTION APPROACH: THE CLIENT DIALOGUE
THE MEETING OUTCOME
THE ROLE OF AN ADVISER: CHALLENGING YOUR CLIENT
CHAPTER SUMMARY
CASE STUDY THREE: SCOPING A STUDY
CASE SCENARIO
MEETING PREPARATION
SCOPING A STUDY: THE SET-UP PHASE
SCOPING A STUDY: THE CLIENT DIALOGUE
THE MEETING OUTCOME
CHAPTER SUMMARY
PART III: ADDITIONAL TOPICS
CHAPTER FIVE: PROPOSING A CONSULTING SERVICE
SELECTING THE CONTENT
PRACTICES TO AVOID
CHAPTER SUMMARY
CHAPTER SIX: DELIVERING A CONSULTING SERVICE
THE 50:50 RULE
DELIVERING THE RESULT
OPTIMIZING THE CLIENT EXPERIENCE
CHAPTER SUMMARY
CHAPTER SEVEN: CLIENT INTERACTIONS AND RELATED OBSTACLES
THE IMPORTANCE OF ADAPTABILITY
DEALING WITH CLIENT-RELATED OBSTACLES
CHAPTER SUMMARY
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE SKILL OF ADVISING
THE DEDUCTIVE METHOD
THE INDUCTIVE METHOD
COMPARING THE METHODS
COMBINING THE METHODS
DOCUMENTING THE ARGUMENT
PRESENTING AN ARGUMENT
CHAPTER SUMMARY
ADDITIONAL REFERENCE MATERIAL
INDEX
NOTES
End User License Agreement
Pages
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Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part I: Consulting Fundamentals
Begin Reading
List of Illustrations
CHAPTER ONE: WHAT IS CONSULTING?
Figure 1.1 A consulting portfolio
Figure 1.2 A client's need
Figure 1.3 Partnering opportunities
CHAPTER TWO: PREPARING TO CONSULT
Figure 2.1 Basic preparation elements
Figure 2.2 Detailed preparation elements
Figure 2.3 Engagement-specific preparation elements
CHAPTER FOUR: MANAGING CLIENT MEETINGS
Figure 4.1 Client meeting structure
CASE STUDY 1: Exploring a New Consulting Opportunity
Figure C-1.1 Exploring a new consulting opportunity
Figure C-1.2 Collected business objectives
Figure C-1.3 Initial scope
CASE STUDY 2: PRESENTING A SOLUTION APPROACH
Figure C-2.1 Presenting a solution approach
Figure C-2.2 Review of business objectives
Figure C-2.3 Candidate solution areas
CASE STUDY 3: SCOPING A STUDY
Figure C-3.1 Logic tree: Main branches
Figure C-3.2 Logic tree: Completed hypothesis
Figure C-3.3 The logic tree: with client feedback
CHAPTER SIX: DELIVERING A CONSULTING SERVICE
Figure 6.1 The 50:50 rule
Figure 6.2 Methodology example
Figure 6.3 Typical consultant/client project organization
Figure 6.4 Classification of issues
CHAPTER SEVEN: CLIENT INTERACTIONS AND RELATED OBSTACLES
Figure 7.1 Common behavioural differences
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE SKILL OF ADVISING
Figure 8.1 A deductive argument
Figure 8.2 Deductive elimination process
Figure 8.3 An inductive argument
Figure 8.4 The proposal: main argument
Figure 8.5 The proposal: second-level arguments
Figure 8.6 The proposal: document structure
Figure 8.7 The proposal: table of contents
Figure 8.8 The proposal presentation structure
THE CONSULTANT'S HANDBOOK
A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO DELIVERING HIGH-VALUE AND DIFFERENTIATED SERVICES IN A COMPETITIVE MARKETPLACE
SAMIR PARIKH
This edition first published 2015
© 2015 Samir Parikh
Registered office
John Wiley and Sons Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Parikh, Samir, 1970-
The consultant's handbook : a practical guide to delivering high-value and differentiated services in a competitive marketplace / Samir Parikh.
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-119-10620-3 (cloth)
1. Business consultants. 2. Consulting firms–Management. I. Title.
HD69.C6P276 2015
001–dc23
2015009041
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-119-10620-3 (hardback)
ISBN 978-1-119-10621-0 (ePub) ISBN 978-1-119-10619-7 (ePDF)
Cover design: Wiley
Cover Image: © Andreas Rodriguez/iStockphoto
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
With great thanks to Peter Stinner for his instrumental contributions to the development of this work.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Samir Parikh is a British-born consultant with over 20 years of industry experience. He began his career in the UK consulting towards the aerospace industry and then later joined a large international consulting firm where he participated in pan-European projects in the information technology, financial services and pharmaceuticals industries.
In early 2000 Samir founded SPConsulting, a global management consulting firm based in Stockholm, Sweden, specializing in organizational strategy and change management. With many of its clients being multi-national corporations, SPConsulting has conducted assignments in more than 50 countries.
The firm works closely with companies that are transforming into consulting-based organizations delivering solutions and professional services in their own areas of specialization and in highly competitive environments. Samir and his team have been responsible for helping clients to define strategies to succeed in their markets, creating new capabilities at various organizational levels and implementing maturity programmes to ensure continuous development and the maintenance of competitive advantage.
In addition to his active role as a practitioner, Samir has often been a speaker on the topic of consulting, addressing senior audiences in different industry segments as well as appearing as a guest speaker to undergraduates at leading universities and business schools.
INTRODUCTION
The objective of this book is to provide a practical context as well as tips and actionable guidelines to those working with or interested in consulting.
Suitable audiences include soon-to-be graduates interested in the consulting profession, consultants aiming to accelerate their careers through the acquisition of new ideas, and experienced practitioners wishing to complement their own experience with that of others.
Beyond the realm of consulting, the topics presented in this book could also be applied by a wide range of professionals whose roles involve frequent interactions with internal or external stakeholders, in order to improve their effectiveness and to navigate around common obstacles.
This book is designed to be easy to read, as too many consulting-related books are not. The content presented should be easy to absorb and to connect with one's own experience. The very practical approach adopted as well as a rich variety of examples are intended to make the concepts discussed easy to implement with immediate benefit in a wide range of daily situations, irrespective of the reader's experience level. The content has been organized to take the reader on a logical journey through some of the most important considerations in the practical world of consulting. Each chapter will provide a foundation for the ideas presented in the next. It is therefore recommended that the chapters are read in sequence.
Part I, Consulting Fundamentals, introduces some of the underlying principles that apply to any consulting-based approach. Those beginning a career in consulting should give these topics particular consideration. Mastering them with high proficiency can immediately improve the outcomes of your consulting engagements. Experienced practitioners may consider these topics as something of a review but may wish to reflect on the examples that illustrate approaches that have worked well and not so well in the past.
Part II, Case Studies, demonstrates how these principles can be applied successfully in consulting engagements. Three different case studies based on real industry situations are presented, providing the reader with an insight into typical daily life in consulting. The case studies are illustrated with additional content that is better presented in context than in isolation.
Part III, Additional Topics, explores a range of other topics that should be understood in order to gain a solid foundation of consulting knowledge. These topics include the delivery of consulting projects, the management of client-related obstacles and the skill of advising.
PART ICONSULTING FUNDAMENTALS
CHAPTER ONEWHAT IS CONSULTING?
What is a consultant? Today many people call themselves consultants: corporations formulate their strategies with the support of management consultants; a graduate employed by an information technology (IT) company developing software is called a software development consultant; travel agencies are manned by travel consultants; gardeners call themselves landscaping consultants; and a person selling double-glazing introduces himself as a sales consultant. All of these people have quite different roles and skills. On another note, many young graduates freshly employed by companies in the consulting industry are proud of the title ‘consultant’ on their business card but struggle to explain to their friends and relatives from a holistic perspective exactly what it is that they do for a living.
To be successful in consulting you will need to understand its essence: What consulting is, and what it is not. This is particularly important today due to the abundant use of the consultant title. Many of the people bearing the title may not be consultants at all, or at least consulting may only constitute a small part of what they do. The unravelling of consulting and its complexities is not trivial. Consulting is a diverse activity delivered in many different contexts. We will therefore use an incremental approach to reveal the cornerstones of a consulting service as well as the obstacles and conflicts that can be associated with it.
CONSULTING: THE BASIC PROPOSITION
To begin our journey into the world of consulting, consider the following statement:
Consulting is a helping relationship provided based upon expertise and experience.
Consulting is, indeed, a helping relationship and a consultant's primary focus is to help his or her client to achieve a desired objective or outcome. Helping a client may involve many different activities, according to the need and context. Advising, conducting analysis, formulating strategies, designing processes and implementing technology-based solutions are some of the most common examples of consulting help today.
The statement also suggests that the help provided by consultants is based upon two key ingredients: Expertise and experience. Together these form the basis of what we will refer to as the basic consulting proposition.
Consider the following example.
A client plans to build a new house and decides to employ the services of an architect. For the purposes of our discussion an architect could be considered as a type of consultant with specialist knowledge in the design and construction of buildings. Charging on an hourly basis, the architect inspects the client's plot of land and helps her to design her house. His advice is based firstly upon the expertise that he acquired in a school of architecture, and secondly upon the experience that he brings from having designed many similar buildings over the last ten years. In effect, it is the product of these two components that defines his consulting proposition: The value that he can deliver, and in essence the value that the client is getting for her money.
The balance of expertise and experience that forms a consultant's individual proposition can vary tremendously. A graduate new to the consulting business will usually add value based largely upon expertise or skill, such as being educated and certified in a particular business, technology-related or scientific domain. The proposition of a senior consultant, on the other hand, is more likely to be experience weighted, drawing upon the handling of diverse business situations, participation in complex projects or the findings of research accrued over a number of years. Irrespective of the balance, we have introduced the two most important variables that define a consultant's proposition, expertise and experience, which if applied effectively can result in a powerful and high-value service.
If you are working as a consultant it is important that you clearly understand your proposition as an individual. You will need to articulate it to clients and then apply it with accuracy to a variety of problems and situations. Today clients have high expectations of consultants and may challenge you, putting your proposition to the test with questions such as ‘What industry certification do you have enabling you to consult in this area?’ or ‘How long have you worked in this solution domain? Can you give an example of a similar case that you have worked with, and the outcome?’ These are fair and reasonable questions from a client, and a good consultant should be able to answer them clearly and professionally. In Chapter 3, Establishing Credibility, the skill of articulating the consulting proposition will be explored with a view to building a credible consultant–client relationship.
WHO IS QUALIFIED TO BE A CONSULTANT?
We have already highlighted the broad use of the consultant title. Consulting is a largely unregulated profession and, with the exception of certain specific regulated disciplines, there are usually no minimum qualifications attached to the title. Anyone who chooses to brand themselves as a consultant therefore becomes a consultant, and anyone whom a consulting company chooses to hire, albeit according to their own selection criteria, becomes a consultant. The resultant diversity of people acting in a consultant role brings with it many consequences.
Compare consulting with a strictly regulated profession, for example the accounting profession. If you want to call yourself a chartered accountant and print the title on a business card there are a number of professional exams that you must pass, even after completing a university degree. The title is protected. If you were to go to a local copy shop, print business cards bearing the title and start practising without attaining the mandatory qualifications, sooner or later the regulatory agency governing the accounting profession in your country would come along and sue you. The same principle applies to other regulated professions such as medicine. You cannot just call yourself a doctor and start practising on people. The implications would be disastrous.
In consulting there are generally no such regulations. Due to its diversity, consulting is more difficult to regulate than certain other professions and as a result a wide variety of firms and individuals present themselves to corporations as consultants. The performance of these people is generally mixed. Some may be very good, some mediocre and others may perform very badly, unable to deliver to their promises, and consequently rarely earning the opportunity to work for the same client more than once.
Consider now the impact of this dilemma from the client perspective. For clients there is a risk associated with engaging a consulting firm for the first time. The consultants may bring impressive references and present interesting proposals, but until you have seen them perform and produce results you never know exactly what you are going to get. When a client hires a chartered accountant they can be guaranteed of a basic level of skill and performance. Consulting is much more subjective, and the reputation and demonstrated track record of a consultant are therefore key to his or her success. Most well-seasoned clients can refer to at least one occasion when they had a less than satisfactory experience dealing with a consultant. In extreme cases you may encounter organizations that do not like consultants at all. If you face this situation you are likely to encounter resistance from client personnel based upon their scars from the past. The example below highlights one such case.
Some years ago I was flying from Newark International Airport in the United States to Stockholm, Sweden. The flight was approximately eight hours in duration and departed Newark in the early evening. The gentleman sitting next to me on the aeroplane was smartly dressed in a suit with the appearance of a senior executive. As we arrived at our seats we exchanged courtesies. During the first hours of the flight we both focused on our work, until the crew appeared to serve a meal. We placed our computers aside and engaged in light conversation over dinner. I rarely talk much about my work in such situations and generally steer towards lighter social topics of conversation.
The gentleman turned out to be a senior manager for an automotive company, based in Michigan. For many years his key area of specialization had been the design and production of heavy-duty gearboxes, a subject that he clearly relished to talk about. During the course of the next 20 minutes I learned a lot about gearboxes – everything from sensor technology to industrial lubricants and their response to different temperature gradients. My travel companion was pleasant, enthusiastic and told an interesting, although somewhat technically detailed, story.
At a certain point in the discussion the gentleman changed the subject and asked what I did for a living. I responded without hesitation, ‘I am a senior consultant, working with an international firm’. The mood of our conversation changed immediately. ‘Oh – a consultant!’ he exclaimed with a pronounced sigh. For a moment I paused, but as usual my curiosity got the better of me. I was keen to discover what had happened to this gentleman in the not so distant past that had provoked such a reaction. ‘I sense that you have some experience working with consultants’, I said. ‘Would you care to share it?’
His response to this question was a passionate one: ‘We had some consultants working in my organization several months ago. They came in wearing dark suits. They upset all of my people doing everything their way, according to their fancy consulting methodologies. It was like an invasion. They changed a lot of things, cost us a lot of money and left us in a mess. There will definitely be no more consultants in my organization for a very long time.’
It suffices to say that the next team of consultants who engage with the organization concerned will not be welcomed with open arms by the people working there. Clients may indeed be wary regarding the value that consultants will deliver, regarding the way that they will engage, and may be haunted by past experiences. Consultants must therefore be skilled in handling negative perceptions and the obstacles associated with them. We will explore these ideas in Chapter 7, Client Interactions and Related Obstacles. During longer-term consulting engagements an additional client concern may relate to the consistency with which an assignment can be delivered. This is of particular relevance to larger consulting firms that may be forced periodically to rotate the resources assigned to their projects. Consider the following example.
A client engaged a team of consultants from a large, well-known firm. The consultants worked efficiently, were a pleasure to have in-house and exceeded expectations in the output that they produced. The client was delighted with the result and communicated this openly at project conclusion. The following year when another assignment was initiated, the client had no hesitation in engaging the same consulting company based upon his former experience. The second assignment was, however, carried out by a different team from the consulting company. The second team performed well but not as well, in the eyes of the client, as the first team. Although the assignment was completed successfully the client reported a lower level of satisfaction.
This situation emphasizes that consulting, like any professional service-related discipline, is a people business. Client satisfaction is highly dependent upon the skills and attitudes of the individuals carrying out the work. Consulting firms therefore need mechanisms to ensure that they can deliver with high quality and high consistency, limiting dependence on individuals.
Such mechanisms include strict recruitment criteria that go beyond educational qualifications and place a strong focus on practical and interpersonal abilities. Most firms also operate an internal certification programme tied to the defined roles within their organization. An individual aspiring to the role of senior consultant, for example, may have to demonstrate a solid base of experience as well as a highly developed skill set that meets carefully defined criteria before securing the position. It is measures such as these that enable larger firms to deliver a consistent experience to clients.
REPRESENTING A CONSULTING ORGANIZATION
If you are representing a consulting organization rather than operating as an individual, the credentials of your organization will also form an important element of your consulting proposition. When leveraged correctly, these assets become quite significant. Consider working as a consultant representing a firm of 500 people. Your consulting proposition can now be described in two parts: your personal proposition, and that of your organization. When helping your client you will be expected to:
Leverage your own expertise and experience
Tap into a network of 500 colleagues, locating answers to questions as needed
Identify assets created by your organization in similar, past projects and reuse them to improve both quality and efficiency.
We can incorporate these ideas into our definition:
The role of a consultant is to help a client by leveraging his or her own expertise and experience, together with the collective expertise, experience and assets of his or her organization.
A fundamental question is how as consultants we bring these collective assets to bear. Well-managed consulting companies are knowledge management companies, and a number of texts have been published on this topic. The tools and processes required to facilitate effective knowledge management vary depending upon the size of the organization as well as the types of knowledge to be managed. Both formal and informal approaches can be effective. Once, during my junior years as a consultant, a senior colleague described the importance of this with a very simple story.
‘When this company started’, she said, ‘we were 50 employees located in one office spread over two floors of a building. If you were working on a project and needed information or an answer to a question you would consult one central resource – the coffee pot. If you went to the coffee room and chatted with colleagues you would quite easily find either someone who could answer your question, or someone who knew someone who would be able to help. The coffee pot was often something of a saviour. But now with more than 5000 employees spread across five continents the coffee pot has long since exhausted its limitations. That is why we document different types of knowledge objects in databases for easy retrieval, connect specialists globally through networks and communities, and bring people together in face-to-face events such as conferences. Knowledge management has never been more important to the competitive nature of our business’.
Larger consultancy firms invest heavily in the infrastructure required to facilitate effective knowledge management. Experience has shown, however, that the key to success is to create a knowledge sharing culture where employees understand the importance of both contributing to and reusing knowledge assets in their consulting assignments. Even with elaborate tools, databases and processes in place, there are still too many consulting organizations that reinvent the wheel on a daily basis. There is a tendency for creative people to follow their passion to invent before taking the time to check what has been invented before. To deliver with both high quality and high efficiency at least some form of reuse is likely to play an important role.
Many consulting firms market themselves with a great emphasis on corporate experience and knowledge capital. As a result, clients may have high expectations regarding the way in which this is leveraged during an assignment. Consider your answer to the following question if posed by a client:
‘We selected your company due to your experience in this domain. How are you utilizing lessons learned from other cases to benefit this project and our organization?’
As a consultant representing an organisation you will need to recognize that collective knowledge is part of your proposition and incorporate this to at least some extent in each project. Clients will expect it.
ETHICS IN CONSULTING
The topic of ethics plays an important part in the shaping of the consulting proposition. Poor judgement associated with ethics has resulted in the erosion of client–consultant relationships and has been an issue in large consulting collaborations more often than one might expect. The foundation of an ethical relationship with a client relates to the helping relationship that was introduced at the beginning of this chapter.
Consultants are engaged by clients to provide help. They are expected to provide that help with the client's best interest at heart.
Consider a visit to a private doctor, a qualified and experienced medical practitioner. You pay the doctor for a premium service and expect him to give the best possible advice; to act in your best interest. The doctor makes a diagnosis and prescribes an expensive medication. A week later you find out that the doctor is being wined and dined in the city's finest restaurant by the pharmaceutical company that produces the medicine and is recommending it to everybody. You would immediately question the ethics of the decision and question whether you would ever return to the doctor, let alone recommend him to others. Questionable ethical conduct has undermined the relationship.
Providing a consulting service with the client's best interest at heart as well as respecting associated ethical practices concerning matters such as confidentiality and general conduct will usually avoid ethical dilemmas in a consultant–client relationship. The problem, however, can relate to another fundamental issue:
What is in the client's best interest and what is in the consulting company's interest to make more business may not be the same thing.
Consider the following example.
A large consulting company providing IT-related services was contracted to carry out a major systems implementation project in northern Europe. More than 100 consultants were assigned to the project for its two-year duration which represented a significant amount of revenue for the consulting company.
Everything went fine until
