What Does a Business Transformation Consultant Do?
You’ve been monitoring your business for some time, and found yourself thinking, ‘Things could be better’, but you’re not sure what needs to change or how to implement it. You know you don’t have the time, energy or expertise to bring about significant change yourself, and so you consider bringing in a business transformation consultant. What can you expect from your consultant? What will they do for you and your business? And what won’t they do?
The initial consultation
Before hiring a consultant, it’s important to have an initial assessment. This gives you space and time to step back from your business and articulate what’s working, what isn’t, and what you want to achieve. Your consultant will ask a myriad of questions, some of them about hard facts like turnover and profitability, and some about the softer side of your business such as your staff’s strengths and weaknesses, and your business culture.
An initial chat will help you to define the root problem you’re facing, what your options might be, and some of the associated risks and challenges. Having an outsider’s viewpoint can help you to review your business more objectively.
What a business transformation consultant will do:
Business transformation entails bringing about a major change in your business, changing what you do and how you do it. To help you to achieve this, your consultant will:
What a business transformation consultant won’t do:
What you should ask a business transformation consultant:
If you’ve recognised your business needs a major change to ensure its survival and profitability, and that you need a business transformation consultant to help you make that change, these are the questions you should ask at an initial consultation:
Business transformation is both exhilarating and hard work. Having the right business transformation consultant by your side as you work through it will ensure your transformation is successful, long lasting, and profitable.
The initial consultation
Before hiring a consultant, it’s important to have an initial assessment. This gives you space and time to step back from your business and articulate what’s working, what isn’t, and what you want to achieve. Your consultant will ask a myriad of questions, some of them about hard facts like turnover and profitability, and some about the softer side of your business such as your staff’s strengths and weaknesses, and your business culture.
An initial chat will help you to define the root problem you’re facing, what your options might be, and some of the associated risks and challenges. Having an outsider’s viewpoint can help you to review your business more objectively.
What a business transformation consultant will do:
Business transformation entails bringing about a major change in your business, changing what you do and how you do it. To help you to achieve this, your consultant will:
- Assess the symptoms your business is displaying (decreasing staff motivation; decrease in turnover; lack of competitive edge) and diagnose the causes of those symptoms (lack of career progression; archaic IT systems; changing world markets).
- Define the options available to you to address these causes and evaluate each option. There isn’t always a ‘best’ solution – each one needs differing levels of effort and brings its own costs and benefits. Your consultant will help you to weigh these up. They will also help you mitigate the risks of your business transformation.
- Cost out and plan the delivery of your business transformation, so that you have a realistic timeline and breakdown of what will happen when, so that you can plan around it and assess how well it is progressing.
- Help you to get active support from your staff, board members, customers and the wider community. Buy-in from these groups is essential for the success of your business transformation.
- Help you to deliver the transformation. Consultants might be embedded in your team for some or all of the project, working alongside your staff.
- Evaluate the success of the transformation once it has been delivered, including calculating your ROI.
What a business transformation consultant won’t do:
- Oversell you a consultation package if the solution for your business is easy and you can make the changes yourself simply and quickly.
- Overstate their expertise. A good consultant will say if they’re not the right person for your business, and will help you to find someone who is.
- Do it for you. Though your consultant will work closely with you and your staff, they won’t do all the work for you. Business transformation projects require dedicated staff, time, and resources.
- Raise the necessary funding for your business transformation, though your consultant might advise on where funding is needed and possible sources to apply to.
- Do it all themselves. Where necessary, your consultant will bring in other experts to assist and will act as an initial POC between them and you, ensuring that communication is streamlined and effective across the transformation team.
- Make the decisions for you. You remain in control and you decide what you want to happen.
- Breach your confidentiality.
What you should ask a business transformation consultant:
If you’ve recognised your business needs a major change to ensure its survival and profitability, and that you need a business transformation consultant to help you make that change, these are the questions you should ask at an initial consultation:
- Based on what I’ve told you about my business, what do you see as the major challenges?
- Have you worked in this sector before? What was the outcome?
- Is this in your area of expertise? If not, who would you recommend?
- To bring about the changes I’ve outlined, roughly what would it cost in terms of staff, resources, time, and capital outlay?
Business transformation is both exhilarating and hard work. Having the right business transformation consultant by your side as you work through it will ensure your transformation is successful, long lasting, and profitable.