Hi welcome to Management Consulted. I'm Jenny Rae, the Managing Director, and today I'm going to clear up
some key questions: who are consultants? Now, this is not a question that we're
answering in a metaphysical sense, who are consultants? We're answering more in
the practical sense, in the way that I used to have to answer when people would
ask me, "Who is a consultant and what actually do they do?" So I'm going to
cover it on three different areas today. The first, will be consultants versus
contractors; the second is who a consultant works for, and what that means
for what they do; and the third is what skills a consultant brings to the table.
Now, the first one -- consultants versus contractors -- is a very key
question because a lot of contractors call themselves consultants, and a lot of
consultants call themselves contractors. Consultants usually work in teams of
people, and they work for a predetermined amount of time for a company.
Contractors, in contrast, usually work solo and they work on a limited basis, often part-time,
and for a long duration for a company. So for example, a consultant and a
consultants team would usually bring a core set of expertise on, like I said,
a predetermined period of time; whereas a contractor, for example, an SEO contractor
or search engine optimization contractor, would bring a specific set of expertise
but they would really function like an employee just they wouldn't give all of
their hours to one particular company. Oftentimes a consultant will work
directly with one or maybe two companies at the same time, whereas, a contractor
can work for many companies ten or twenty or more at the same time,
providing, like I said, a very specific set of expertise. So, even if you are
confused in the future, and someone's calling themselves a consultant,
hopefully you can tell the difference now between a consultant and a contractor.
Second, who consultants work for really determines what kind of
consultant they are. When I was asked what kind of consulting I did at Bain,
I was able to answer that I worked in strategy consulting. And the key focus of
strategy or management consulting is working with the Chief Executive Officer
of a corporation. Usually the CEO has one of three top objectives that they have
on their mind. Key business problems that are associated with those key top
objectives are the ones that strategy consultants like Bain, McKinsey, or BCG
are brought in to solve. Now, there are two tiers underneath this type of
consulting, not in any way inferior to management consulting, but they are
functionally very different -- the first is technology consulting, and the second is
financial advisory consulting. Technology consulting is very focused on
implementing technology that will enable a business to either increase its sales,
decrease its cost, or expand visibility across an organization. Technology is
absolutely critical to any major business today, and technology
consultants firms like Accenture Capgemini are very focused on bringing
key tools to the table that will enable a business to handle both development
and also ongoing maintenance of their technical assets.
The second is chief financial consulting, or consultants that work for the Chief Financial Officer.
Financial advisory consulting in particular is really focused on helping
a business manage its assets, specifically its cash, debt, and equity in
order to ensure the ongoing smooth operations of the business. So they could
be brought in for just consistent questions like, how do we manage our cash
or inventory better? They could also be brought in for longer-term questions
like, how do we actually implement a merger or an acquisition that we're considering?
So once again the three major types of consultants are strategy consultants,
technical consultants, or technology consultants, and financial advisory consultants.
Now consultants bring a lot when they're bringing many
things to the table but the key classifications for what determines how
much latitude a consultants given inside an organization is the prestige or the
brand that they come with, the impact that they have inside the organization which
is measurable, and finally, the expertise that they bring to the table.
Often consultants are hired for one of these three things, sometimes a
combination of the three. And the level of prestige, the level of expected impact,
and the level of expertise that they bring really determines what price point
a consultant or a consulting firm can charge for their services. So once again
in summary today, we had three key things that we focused on -- consultants versus contractors,
how to tell the difference between consultants based on who they
work for, and what consultants specifically bring to the table.
If you have further questions please visit us at managementconsulted.com and stay tuned for future videos in the upcoming weeks.