MANAGEMENT CONSULTING: A BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER
You’ve been lying awake from 4:30 in the morning with an upset stomach and that’s not the worst of your problems. Once you wake up and you’ll have to explain to people why you look like crap, and that’s when you face an avalanche of suggestions and advices. After putting a hot water bag on your stomach, chewing on some roots and everything else under the sun, you realize that you’re better off talking to a certified doctor. Unsolicited advice comes easy and in large numbers, but they rarely come from the right sources that are backed with the right credibility. Of course, some of the advice you get works, but it is never consistent because it is not expert advice.
The same thing happens in organizations across the world. Everything is fine until one day we realize there is something we need to do to get ourselves out of a rut. This is where consultants and consulting is needed. Like a doctor examining a patient’s stomach problems, a consultant has the ability to examine the improvement areas in an organization.
Management Consulting is all about helping organizations to improve their performance; operating primarily through the analysis of existing organizational problems and the development of plans for improvement.
The term consultant in our country is more often associated with individuals who are involved in providing research-based studies for INGO projects and rarely with the organization development aspect. Companies benefit from management consulting, as they are able to draw on the expertise of the consultant in gaining external and objective advice.
Since consultants and consulting firms have a lot of exposure and maintain relationships with numerous organizations, they are typically aware of industry “best practices”, which can come in handy in helping an organization in a problem situation. However the specific nature of situations under consideration limits exact replication of solutions of such practices from one organization to another. Other key areas of consulting may be able to develop coaching skills, organizational change management assistance, technology implementation, strategy development, process analysis, or operational improvement services. Management consultants often bring their own experiences and practices or frameworks to identify problems and to serve as the basis for recommendations for more effective or efficient ways of performing work tasks. Consultants have specialized skills on tasks that would typically involve high internal coordination costs for clients, which could include organization-wide changes or the implementation of information technology. In addition, the focus and experience in gathering information worldwide and across industries allows consultants to render their information search less costly than for clients.
COMPANIES BENEFIT FROM MANAGEMENT CONSU LTING , AS THEY ARE ABLE TO DRAW ON THE XPERT ISE OF THE CONSULTANTIN GAINING EXTERNL AND OBJECTI E ADVICE .
So, how does consulting work?
It’s basically a back & forth mechanism that becomes beneficial for a company in the long run. Consultants are “problem solvers” by definition but it gravely understates the entire concept. Consultants are content ambassadors who act like a bridge between complicated client context (with various needs, conditions and attributes) and massive backend network of knowledge and expertise.
For instance, when a problem arises in a company, as a consultant, my initial job includes analyzing the problem and breaking it into smaller parts. I boil it down to the key issue and ways to tackle it. When the key issue is identified and agreed upon I go back to the massive backend network of knowledge and expertise I possess to come with the best possible solution. For example, if I am consulting for a food manufacturing company on their production line problem and we realize that inventory costs are high and creating a problem, I go to my back end support and talk with an expert in this area. Consultants do not know everything, but they know how to get everything done.
Management Consulting in Nepal
Management consulting is a loosely term used in Nepal. It is more often used interchangeably with Financial Consulting or Technology Consulting. It is also frequently used in the term Education Consultancy. Whenever I tell someone that I am a consultant they immediately think of me as someone who sends kids to study abroad, which can be annoying.
The concept of Management Consulting, therefore, is clearly not well defined. Everyone believes getting a consulting service is an expense, however I insist it is an investment for the company.
Criticisms
Management consultants are often criticized for a lot of reasons such as overuse of buzzwords and reliance on and propagation of management fads. Sometimes, the client also frowns upon the failure of the consultants to develop plans that are executable. Moreover, untrustworthy consulting firms are sometimes accused of charging high fees and delivering empty promises, along with “stating the obvious” or lacking the experience upon which to base their advice. This causes the consultants to bring few innovations and instead offer generic and “prepackaged” strategies and plans that may be irrelevant to the client’s particular issue. Most fail to prioritize their responsibilities and place their own firm’s interests before those of the clients
3Q Consult Pvt. Ltd.
A company based on the principle of Knowledge & Energy, 3Q Consult Pvt. Ltd. is a Management Consulting firm that provides services in Training & Development, Organizational Development & Behavior Consulting. The company has pool of specialist in management, human resource management and training & development with extensive experiences.
With a vision of developing competent and quality Human Resources, along with systems and procedures, for efficient and productive organizational deliverables, 3Q works closely with clients to identify issues & problems and come with a solution jointly with the company to ensure interventions are executable within the resource available in the company.
Having been established by experts in consulting field for more than two decades, 3Q is able to bring that knowledge and experience to help organizations grow and develop. Working with both public and private sector companies, 3Q also has a good understanding of the Nepalese organizational context.
3Q also values its clients and thus believes in “One-Client Policy” where it works with one client at a time to ensure the best quality consulting service is provided. After all 3Q stands for “quality, quality and only quality”
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