Delivering Results: Consultants need to add value
Management consultants can be great value for money, but they do need to deliver results. A consultant is usually engaged for a specific time to deliver something of a certain quality – often for a fixed fee. The consultant makes a promise to deliver value and they need to keep that promise.
Our management consulting firm does most of its work on a fixed fee basis. It can be over a long period with a string of deliverables that each have quality criteria. There will be lots of things we don’t know about the engagement but we still offer a fixed or capped price and deadline. Our experience lets us take on that risk instead of the client.
It is then our responsibility to work through the unknowns and deliver a quality result on time. That is part of the value we offer. If it turns out to be harder than we thought then it is on us to find a way through.
Value for Money
Clients deserve to get value for money when they pay for consultants. Consultants need to be well informed in their area of expertise but also on issues in society, politics, the economy, and the environment that may help their clients. Mediocrity doesn’t cut it if you claim to be an expert.
If you can’t provide original and insightful perspectives with high ethical standards then find another line of work. If you can’t deliver quality results on time and on budget then don’t consult. It is a tough game and results matter. Clients should replace consultants that don’t deliver value.
Times are tough right now. Inflation, high interest rates, low consumer and business confidence and big cuts in Government spending make people more careful about spending money. Rightfully so. As advisors, we look at those factors and ask – “How can we help?”
OneWeekDelivery
It seems that one way to help is to offer more value in more affordable packages. As a team we got together to talk about what that might look like and came up with OneWeekDelivery.
A lot of our consulting jobs are 3, 6 or 9 months but we do strategic reviews which can take 4-6 weeks and we do rapid reviews which can be 1-2 weeks. We also do lots of tasks within larger engagements that could potentially be stand-alone deliverables.
OneWeekDelivery guarantees a specific deliverable within one week of your sign-off. Typically, that will involve an initial briefing, communication, either a half- or full-day workshop and the provision of a valuable strategic deliverable in one week – all for a fixed fee.
The deliverable may be a rapid desk-based review, project outline, business process mapping, Value Stream Mapping/Value Proposition/Business Model workshop, or something else you need. OneWeekDelivery means:
- Minimum disruption to your work schedule
- An agreed fixed cost with no risk of cost overruns
- Clear definition of the deliverable
- On-time delivery
- A post-engagement review.
Finding value can be hard. Starting this process is easy. Simply email or call to have a conversation.
Phil Guerin, Consultant/Director, Hague Consulting Ltd. © Hague Consulting Ltd 2024.
Share this on social media