Consultants already say that their clients are getting smarter — and more demanding.
A little black booklet titled Your Secret Weapon — How to Get the Most Out of Your Consultant that Deloitte Consulting is distributing to clients and prospects gives them more ammunition. In one chapter, the firm urges buyers of consulting services to ask themselves three questions before they bring in a consultant:
• Do we know where we are headed? "It's okay to bring consultants in to help figure out where you need to go. It's not okay to have them take you there before you have figured out just where 'there' is," the firm counsels.
• Should our own people be doing the job? Clients offer plenty of excuses for asking consultants to do things they are perfectly capable of doing on their own. According to Deloitte, these include: "It's easier getting money for consultants than for head count." "My people don't have the time to get it done." "Using consultants is more convenient than pulling together an internal team." "It's how we've always gotten things done." The firm exhorts, "Don't mistake habits for reasons."
• Did consultants fail the last three times we brought them in on a project? "A consultant will only be as good as your organization will allow them to be," Deloitte explains. "If it never seems to work out with consultants, it might be that the root causes are a little closer to home. It's best to try to figure those out and make the necessary changes before taking the plunge again."
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