Clients Have the Right to Expect More

But consultants sometimes need to go back to first principles—remembering that each industry and moreover, each client, has its unique set of circumstances, operational
nuances, functional requirements, business objectives, and financial considerations that should not only be acknowledged, but directly drive the analysis and recommendations of each engagement. Relying too heavily on a team of talented, yet freshly minted MBAs with limited direct experience and a trunk full of templates, even if led by a project manager and a part time partner, can only take an engagement so far.

While the need to start with a fresh slate on consulting projects focused on areas such as corporate strategy or product portfolio management is generally understood, there is often a tendency to follow a "templatized" approach for operational or information technology oriented engagements.

On the surface, it's easy to understand why—these projects frequently have functional and technical characteristics that are common across industries allowing staff to benefit from "job-aids" such as previously used financial models, interview guides, data collection workbooks, RFP templates, etc.

But consultants must be mindful of when and how to use preexisting collateral since there is a wide gap between "leveraging" and "reusing" the material unaltered. As an example, consider the area of strategic sourcing. Leveraging a data collection form to gather information required to perform a spend analysis across the client's portfolio of vendors may be perfectly appropriate. On the other hand, attempting to force fit an RFP that was originally designed to source IT contract labor into one that would be used to source an IT managed services vendor would be borderline irresponsible.

The following hypothetical case study illustrates what can go wrong with over-templatizing an engagement. An airline company considering offshoring its customer care operations decides to utilize a consulting firm that had successfully assisted a mortgage company in determining the feasibility of outsourcing its customer contact center and subsequently transition to the new environment—thus enabling the realization of intended financial and operational benefits.

In the mortgage company's case, the target customers were existing home owners (essentially "captive" and largely unaffected by the quality of the customer service they receive) interested in obtaining basic information about account balances, early payment terms, and changes brought on by expiring ARMs.

They also had questions that could be easily answered with "look-up" tables, generally allowing the outsourcer's customer care representatives to use scripted responses and simple call handling processes (as an aside, let's assume this transition occurred prior to the current environment in which loan modification programs and distressed homeowners have led to more complicated customer contacts in this industry).

The financial benefits of the decision were significant and directly quantifiable, but more importantly, the transition from an in-house onshore model to an outsourced offshore model was accomplished seamlessly due to the routinized nature of the processes.

Further, the steady state operations actually worked better in the new model versus the former model due to the outsourcer's ability to develop clear scripts, apply a higher manager to representative ratio, and implement better quality controls – collectively offsetting a minor increase in complaints relating to heavily accented contact center representatives.

For the airline client, the consulting firm uses the same RFP, financial models, language/cultural considerations, and other key assumptions—ultimately arriving at the same conclusion as it did for the mortgage company. However, the project fails to consider the additional financial implications (e.g., added retained cost categories), vendor staffing implications of different language support needs, complexity of an airline reservation, the need for fluid and clear communications with no tolerance for mistakes, and the ease with which customers can call another airline if they have a bad experience—not just for a particular flight reservation, but all future flights as well.

The approach, utilizing the same templates, analysis techniques and many of the nuanced considerations, leads to a recommendation that is inherently flawed due to a failure to customize the requirements, RFP, and evaluation model to the unique customer dynamics of the airline. With tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars at stake and broad customer impacting implications, this one-size-fits-all approach will typically lead to results that are suboptimal at best.

While this is a simplistic example of what can go wrong by relying too directly on past work products, it highlights the types of problems that can occur by employing a service mentality based on generalizations, where apparent gains in delivery efficiencies are essentially eviscerated by unsound recommendations.

Of course, no one will confess to such blatant failures associated with the "atrocities of the template," and this caution is certainly not new or revolutionary, but it sometimes helps to remember a few basic principles:

• First, start with the client problem and work towards your artifacts, not vice versa. Resist the temptation to commence a project by trolling through your repository of PowerPoint decks, TCO models, and other deliverables until you firmly grasp the client's specific objectives, environment and operational considerations. Then figure out which previously developed tools, if any, can be fashioned for beneficial use on the project.

• Second, recognize that sometimes you just need to start with a clean sheet of "paper": be it a deck, a spreadsheet or a document. You'll often find that trying to force fit previously used artifacts can create greater inefficiencies than starting anew. Finally, don't forget that the ultimate success of the engagement is based on the sum of the input and the output—i.e., the value received by the client for the fees paid. Clients are looking for consultants to manage this basic element of service delivery behind the scenes – as they ultimately reserve final judgment on the success or failure of the project based on how well their objectives are met, rarely concerning themselves with how the sausage is made. We owe it to our clients to find this balance of speed and customization, to give them the greatest chance of success, at a price consistent with the value of the services received.

Steve Martin is a partner at Pace Harmon, an outsourcing advisory services firm providing guidance on complex outsourcing and strategic sourcing transactions, process optimization and supplier program management. He has over 25 years of industry and consulting experience in the areas of technology, telecom and supply chain.