consultancy services

Consultancy Services

Service Delivery Aspect

Presentation by

Renjin Babu, Roll No. 1001, PGDM, CCSMS

Types of Consulting firms

Financial

Information technology

Management

Human Resources

Legal

Hotel and Hospitality industry

Others – Advertising/Marketing/Public relations,

Environmental, Energy, Politics and the Public Sector,

Real Estate, etc.

Who is a Consultant?

A consultant is "someone who has influence over an individual, group, or

organization, but who has no direct authority to implement changes. A

consultant is usually an expert or a professional in a specific field and has a

wide knowledge of the subject matter.

Role of a consultant

Internal consultant - someone who operates within an organization but is

available to be consulted on areas of specialism by other departments or

individuals (acting as clients);

External consultant - someone who is employed externally (either by a firm

or some other agency) whose expertise is provided on a temporary basis,

usually for a fee. As such this type of consultant generally engages with

multiple and changing clients.

The overall impact of a consultant is that clients have access to deeper levels

of expertise than would be feasible for them to retain in-house, and may

purchase only as much service from the outside consultant as desired.

Place of work

Though most of the back-office research and analysis

occurs at the consultants’ offices, consultants typically

work at the site of the client for at least some of the time.

The governing factor tends to be the amount of interaction

required with other employees of the client.

Characteristics of consultants Consultants have all the materials, methodology, and tools needed to carry out the

activity at their disposal.

They combine human and material resources with the application of a businessman’s

way of looking at the client’s problem.

They are flexible in their ability to assimilate changes in the planning of projects.

They have sufficient assets to cover delays in payments which may possibly occur.

They are independent, maintain a high level of confidentiality, and are always at the

client’s service.

Furthermore, consultants are of above-average intelligence and are quick to learn,

observe, reason, synthesise, and imagine.

They understand other people and work well with them.

They are good at communicating, persuading and motivating.

They can control themselves. They have personal energy and self-initiative, ethics and

integrity.

They are mentally and physically fit for the strain they are put under in their daily work”

The 7Cs of Consulting: Details

Source: “The 7Cs of Consulting”; Mick Cope

Client: Understanding the client’s real and perceived view of what is required

from the assignment

Clarify: Understanding the nature of the problem being addressed and the

scope of the change being attempted.

Create: Here the consultant needs to develop the plan of action needed.

Change: The consultant must attempt to understand the drivers of the

change.

Confirm: Once the actions taken, the consultant should follow-up and confirm

the change has taken place and looks like the success envisaged.

Continue: The consultant ensures that the changes made continue.

Close: They should ensure that the client is fully aware of the final outcomes,

added value, the new learning and what may be required in the future.

Commonly found Consultants

Engineering consultants

Provide engineering-related services such as

design, supervision, execution, repair, operation,

maintenance, technology, creation of drawings

and specifications, and make recommendations to

public, companies, firms and industries.

Strategy consultants

Working on the development of and improvements

to organisational strategy alongside senior

management in many industries.

Human-resources (HR) consultants

Who provide expertise around employment

practice and people management

Internet consultants

Who are specialists in business use of the internet

and keep themselves up-to-date with new and

changed capabilities offered by the web. Ideally

internet consultants also have practical experience

and expertise in management skills such as

strategic planning, change, projects, processes,

training, team-working and customer satisfaction.

Process consultants

Who are specialists in the design or improvement

of operational processes and can be specific to

the industry or sector.

Public-relations (PR) consultants

Dealing specifically with public relations matters

external to the client organization and often

engaged on a semi-permanent basis by larger

organizations to provide input and guidance.

Performance consultants

Who focus on the execution of an initiative or

overall performance of their client.

Immigration consultants

Who helps through legal procedure of immigration

from one country to other country.

Information Technology (IT) consultants

In many disciplines such as computer hardware,

software engineering, or networks.

Marketing Consultants

Who are generally called upon to advise around

areas of product development and related

marketing matters.

Qualifications

There is no single qualification to be a consultant

Internationally the accreditation of Management Consultants is

overseen by higher education training and accreditation

organizations.

International Council of Management Consulting Institutes

(ICMCI): Certified Management Consultant (CMC)

Chartered Institute of Management Consultants (CIMC):

Chartered Management Consultant

International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) is a

Federation whose members are national associations of

Consulting Engineers.

Examples of consultancies

McKinsey & Company

Bain & Company

The Boston Consulting Group

Deloitte Consulting LLP

PriceWaterhouseCoopers

KPMG

Accenture

Capgemini

Tata Consultancy Services

Arthur D’ Little

Significance of consultancy service

A client’s need for external assistance relating to business matters arises in

several cases. The experience showed that a client organization frequently

resorts to consultancy services when it reaches a critical threshold in its

development, which is either generated by a favorable evolution or by an

unfavorable evolution of the organization.

The continuous sales decrease, the loss of market share, the difficult

macroeconomic context, all of these may bring the organization at a critical

level that cannot be surpassed without the help of experienced professionals.

Similarly, the uncontrolled development of an organization may lead to a dramatic

deterioration of financial indicators, sometimes up to reaching the insolvency and

this is another case in which the organization calls for external help.

Criteria for selection of a business

consultancy

Integrity and professional ethics

of the consulting company

Professional competence

Problem solving approach

Capacity to deliver on time

Ability to deploy resources

Consultant’s image and reputation

Service delivery model

At the core of the consulting firm are the processes of the Value Creation

Process.

Service Delivery is important for three reasons: revenue, recurring business

with the customer and knowledge building.

Service Delivery should be managed to be profitable, contribute to knowledge

building and should be performed with the highest quality and service quality.

There is no uniform consulting process, because consulting is a project-

based business, every client and project includes new challenges and unique

questions.

The Service Delivery process involves steps to solve the problem and

steps to increase acceptation and adoption of the solution.

Service delivery model

Practice Development is about creating awareness for the quality and

capabilities of the practice and professionals and needs to be done to

generate business.

Existing clients are the easiest to target and should at least get 70% of non-

billable hours.

The best way to build a relation with the client is to exceed his expectations.

Relationship is about getting a deep understanding of wants and needs of the

client.

To improve the relationship active participation of the client is needed in

Service Delivery.

Service delivery model

There is no uniform consulting process, because consulting is a project-

based business, every client and project includes new challenges and unique

questions.

Service Delivery should be monitored for added value to the client, both

during and after delivery, as in the way the service is delivered. Under-

delegation must be prevented to raise profitability, knowledge building and

staff motivation.

Service Delivery can add to staff morale and motivation through challenging,

creative and meaningful projects

Consultancy stems from a feeling of anxiety, a need or problem, which the

delivered service needs to address. To solve this problem or fill in the need,

the consultant must take a number of steps.

The Consulting Process

Service Quality

Service quality determines if a firm gets the opportunity to continue the

relationship and delivering services. Different aspects of service quality are:

First the quality of the delivered solution itself: does it solve the problem?

Next, the quality in use: this is more a long-term value. Did the service impact

the client as organization? Is the client more mature, wiser?

Third, Service quality is determined in the way the service was delivered:

Continuous communication on progress, on considerations, on expected

outcomes, involving the client in the process of finding and solving the solution

Case of McKinsey & Company

McKinsey & Co

McKinsey & Company was founded in 1926 in Chicago under the name

James O. McKinsey & Company by James McKinsey

The firm called itself a team of "management engineers" and started out

giving consulting on using accounting principles to make management

decisions

McKinsey consultants are either industry experts, functional experts, or a

generalist that covers a geographic region.

The firm has 23 Industry Practices focused on individual industries, 9

Functional Practices that work in areas like finance, marketing or risk, and

5 Capabilities and Solutions areas related to technology consulting

McKinsey has a de-centralized structure, whereby different offices operate

similarly, but independently.

McKinsey & Co culture

McKinsey claims its consultants are not motivated by money

McKinsey does not advertise itself. Members are not supposed to “sell”

their services, a tradition based in the early 1900s

A 1993 profile story in Fortune Magazine said McKinsey & Company was

“the most well-known, most secretive, most high-priced, most prestigious,

most consistently successful, most envied, most trusted, most disliked

management consulting firm on earth.”

McKinsey's culture has often been compared to religion, because of the

influence, loyalty and zeal of its members

Many chief executive officers of large companies have worked at the firm.

There were over 100 McKinsey offices in 60 countries as of September

2013

Consultancy services

McKinsey provides management consulting services, such as providing advice on

an acquisition, developing a plan to restructure a sales force, creating a new

business strategy or providing advice on downsizing.

Its consultants design and implement studies to evaluate management decisions

using data and interviews to test hypotheses.

Conclusions of the study are presented to senior management, typically in a

PowerPoint presentation and a booklet

McKinsey is considered one of the most prestigious and most expensive

management consulting firms, charged approximately 25% more than competing

firms

A typical McKinsey engagement can last between two and twelve months and

involves three to six McKinsey consultants. An engagement is usually managed by

a generalist that covers the region the client's headquarters are located in and

specialists that have either an industry or functional expertise. Unlike some

competing consulting firms, McKinsey does not hold a policy against a consultant

working for two competing companies. This has sometimes lead to accusations of

sharing confidential information or re-packaging a competitor's practices as best

practices

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