Dissecting Consulting : Understanding Your Fit

We all know consulting is about providing solutions. But what lies beyond it? Have we ever thought about what are the different types of consulting and how are they so different from eachother?

We might enter into an organisation as a consultant with a picture of only providing solutions in our mind and exit feeling deceived when most of our time was utilised in gathering,managing and assimilating data. Do we actually understand our job in the true sense or are we just living in the make believe world vieling the work that we do with the garb of the word ''consulting'' 

This article will help dissect what is consulting all about and the different areas within it.

Consulting Firms can be classified under following categories  

1. Strategy eg. MBB Firms 

2. Implementation eg. Accenture India, Deloitte

3. Function Focus eg. FTI

4. Industry Focus eg. Chartis Group

1.Strategy Firms : They shall help their clients reach the right answer and shall not involve in implementing the right answer. 

2.Implementation firms : These involve high volume of case work would help clients reach the right answer through analysing the data points gathered.

3. Function Focus firms : These firms operate for only specific and focused problem areas Eg. FTI is a financial and litigation consulting firm.

4. Industry specific firms : Smallest of the four classes. These focus on niche areas and the type of work will be constrained to a specific area. The level of experience they bring to the area is tremendously focused on the specific area and obviously this makes the market , which they would cater to be constrained. Eg. Healthcare firms such as Trinity, Chartis.

What is the Difference between Strategy Consulting and Management consulting?

Strategy consulting is a subset of management consulting. Management consulting to understand in simple language could be divided into two parts 

A. Strategy Consulting : Identifying What to Do and why. 

B. Implementation consulting : Gathering of data points and building a story around the data points which would help implement the solutions and finally the assessment phase which would help decipher the effectiveness of the solutions recommended.

This is definitely not written in stone and strategy consultants could also be needed to roll up their sleeves and get into the "what to do and why" of the problem statement. Erstwhile, there was a stark difference between the strategy firms and the management consulting firms

Deep Dive into Management Consulting

What does a Management Consultant bring to the table. Why do companies rely on management consulting firms to solve their problems.

The answer to this according to me is the concept of FOB 

1. Functional Expertise : The Management Consultants are well trained and equipped with the knowledge of the latest disruptive technologies and automation tools. This knowledge i.e functional expertise helps them provide time-effective solutions to the client's problems. Time is more precious than money. Saving time to complete a certain job eventually leads to saving cost for the company thus generating larger revenue and eventually profits. These management consultants undergo robust training procedures and modules in their professional capacities to stay abreast with the latest technologies and thus work in intersection with Business and Technology.A billion dollar revenue generating company even though can solve it's own problem by training it's own employees or by residing through their internal experts to save cost, time and effort would  still resort to a management consultant to solve the company's problems and this is precisely because of the '' confidence'' with which a management consultant would carry forward the task at hand.

This '' confidence'' is developed with the functional knowledge and expertise a management consultant develops.

2. Objective Opinion : A well understood and pivotal requirement of solving any problem is the objectivety while taking decisions. A management consultant hired to specifically solve the problem will have an absolutely unbiased and objective Opinion. While companies can themselves recommend and implement solutions, there could be areas of 'blind spots' due to preconceived notions and unconscious biases.

There could be times when there would be a requirement of a tie breaker to provide a decision over the different possible solutions to a problem statement. A third person view with functional expertise is important in such a scenario where the Management consultant can provide an unbiased time-effective decision.

3. On Demand Brains : High revenue generating and leading companies have the resources and money to hire individuals and build an internal pool of consultants. 

Then why do they rather go for hiring Management consultants than building their own workforce? 

The answer lies in the cost-effectiveness of only seeking the services ''on-demand'' i e. When required from the experts. 

It shall be an additional cost to the company to create a pool of internal consultants and ensure their training & development to keep them abreast with the latest technologies and advancements in the market. Rather, it is cheaper and more cost-effective to choose and hire the apt third party management consultant to carry forward the solutioning for the problem at hand.