Conventional vs. High-Impact Consulting.

A slightly different post from me today. But, nonetheless, I’ve been thinking about my engagements over the years and why many have moved from the traditional view of consulting to a more partnerial model.

It’s the second week of January and I’m thinking about why a boutique consultancy is better to work with than the larger consultancies.

Yeah I know, of course I would say that, as I run a boutique consultancy.

I’ve had the fortune of working in and with the larger consultancies in my career and my reflections are based on:

Conventional vs. High-Impact consulting.

Conventional consulting:

Focuses on a client problem, and the consultant provides a proposal. If successful, the approach is to send in masses of consultants working on the problem and delivering a set of recommendations that the client can’t implement without the consultant. The consultants leave with the knowledge.

Both are in a transactional relationship. The consultant has provided a set of recommendations and the client has accepted it, as the SOW stated. “Something” has been delivered and typically sits on the shelf, until the next time the exercise needs to be done.

High-Impact consulting:

This approach reflects on the business problem with the client, working through a results based framework and readiness to onboard and implement the necessary changes. The consultant is looking for indications from the client that that there is ownership and to use the consultant in an advisory capacity.

The results based framework will lead with a statement such as “we want to increase our revenue by 6% by 2025” The consultant and client will discuss the feasibility, the team required to do this and the input from the consultant. This is about tight collaboration and the consultant isn’t looking to bring in masses of consultants.

The client knows the problem intimately, has the requisite people in the company who can work on it, and is able to assemble a team that can start thinking through what is required. The consultant brings tools, frameworks and approaches to help accelerate the thinking. There is an agreed measurement framework and iterative cycles to ensure, test and learn scenarios. Here the consultant is working in an advisory capacity and when needed can roll up their sleeves. But, the ultimate relationship is where the client team are able to deliver.

Do you see the difference?

An example:

I worked with a Financial Services company, to create, design and implement their operating model. I agreed with the data leader that his team needed my input and we agreed about 40 hours per month. He didn’t need a big team of consultants, because his team was confident to implement. But, they had never created, designed or implemented an Operating Model, and that is why they needed my specialist expertise.

So, we agreed that I would build out the approach, work with the team, test the operating model, run it through a number of scenarios and in the midst of this knowledge transfer would occur.

Well we did it in 4 months, and my input was 1 week per month.

Which style of consulting would you prefer?