The audience was a mixture of purchasers and consultants - which had the benefit of making sure both sides had to take a conciliatory approach rather than just complaining about each other. There were plenty of good points made, but I was struck by how concerned people from the purchasing community were about the behaviour of consultants once they're 'inside' the organisation. Unexpected changes in personnel, surprise additions to the bill for 'account management' and hunting out or creating extra work were just some of the examples quoted.
I think part of the reason was that many of the purchasers involved work mainly with very large consultancies who have large numbers of staff and very sophisticated sales and account management skills. The positive message that came through is that if clients ensure that they are an important account for the consultancy then they can ensure the best service. Key points to help with this are;
- Choose a consultancy for whom your assignment will be a significant but not overwhelming project
- Find a consultancy with the right skills but an interest in growing into your sector
- If there's likely to be follow on work make sure the consultancy realises that
- Be a 'good' client, give them a clear brief and monitor progress regular
If you have any tips for other people on how to get the best out of a consultant then feel free to add a comment.
1 comment:
How about using smaller consultancies?? Sure, there are risks associated with that, but clients are less likely to hit the problems they complained about.
For example, with smaller consultancies, the chances are that WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) - no surprise substitutions of more junior staff in place of the heavy hitters who came in to sell the project in the first place...
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