Why have consultants?

February 17th, 2008 · No Comments

There are many different types of consultants to business. Most have impressive resumes, have been to the right schools but do they ever tell you anything that you do not already know? Do they ever give you a truly fresh and inspiring idea or insight? Once you have received their long-awaited reported do you ever do anything with it? I worked as a consultant and I often wondered why our clients employed us.

When we work with a client our strating point is this–the client knows their business, customers and competition far better then we would ever know. Our challenge is to unlock the way a client ’sees’ their business or frames their problem. By doing so we can help them create a range of new ideas and solutions. Our role is to guide the journey rather than tell them the destination. Most importantly we have found that if the client creates the answer they are more likely to action it.

For example, we recently worked with a pharmaceutical company and their sales were down for a particular product. The leadership team were ’stuck’ and could not understand why this product was not selling as it had in the past. When we worked with the sales team it was clear that they had a mental model that was not in line with the reality of the market place. Their product relied heavily on a few influencers that over the last few years were not as prominant as they once were. By realigning their mental model they realised that they needed to sign up a new array of influencers and sales eventually returned to their former levels.

Sometimes the client is too close to the problem and just needs not a consulting solution but a new lens to see the problem.

Except for some technical matters let’s get rid of all the consultants in the world!