Consulting – what is it in simple terms? Consulting can be understood as receiving assistance from a consultant (acting on his own behalf or on behalf of a company or structural unit) in solving a particular problem or task. As a rule, we are talking about the following areas:
- finance;
- production;
- taxes;
- business management;
- IT;
- jurisprudence;
- ecology.
Setting a specific task for a industry email list consultant is associated with the need to achieve desired economic indicators (for example, in terms of profitability, capitalization).
In practice, these may be the following tasks:
- bringing goods and services to market;
- optimization of promotion channels;
- improving the quality of production management;
- financial analytics;
- working with competitors.
A consulting company helps solve a problem or task set by a client or the consultant himself, using knowledge and skills that the client usually does not have in the same volume. This is most often the reason for turning to a service provider. A significant portion of clients of consulting firms are beginning entrepreneurs who do not have experience in solving many issues of management, reporting, and implementing production solutions.
But it also happens that the indicates the likelihood of your knowledge and skills of both the client and the consultant are comparable. In this case, the second is involved according to the principle of the “second head”, which helps the first, the client’s, not to miss important details.
If necessary, the consultant:
- attracts (usually knowing how to do this quickly and reliably) other specialists who have the required knowledge and skills that the consultant himself does not have;
- acquires (within an acceptable time frame) the relevant necessary knowledge and skills (knowing how to do this and at what expense).
In case of involving assistants (contractors or partners), the consultant, nevertheless, is responsible for the effectiveness of the solution (as well as for the quality of identification) of the problem or task. Thus, consulting is a service that can be provided with the complex participation of a large number of people, but their final effectiveness is ensured by the subject directly interacting with the client.
Types of consulting
Experts identify up to several hundred types of consulting. This is an extremely capacious area of activity, affecting many segments europe email types and tasks of the economy. The most popular types of consulting include the following:
- management (which includes a large number of internal segments, for example, investment consulting, strategic consulting);
- production (logistics, supplies, organization of personnel selection);
- monetary and financial (settlements, taxation, accounting);
- legal (conclusion of contracts, disputes, inspections);
- marketing (product promotion, interaction with the customer audience);
- technological (implementation, optimization of the use of new solutions);
- in the field of PR and external communications.
Consulting service – what is it?
The composition of consulting services may vary depending on the following factors.
1. Level of involvement in the client’s activities.
Conventionally, we can distinguish analytical, process and integration levels.
In the first case, the consultant provides the client with the necessary information to solve the problem or task. An algorithm and order of require actions are developed, but the client carries them out himself.
At the process level, the consultant, in turn, directly participates in the implementation of the algorithms he has created. He and the client set the boundaries of involvement in the business (as well as the conditions for their expansion and reduction). As a rule, these boundaries are define in relation to a specific business process (or several processes). The consultant’s activities ensure improvement of indicators within the relevant area.
If it is difficult to define the specified boundaries, then the types and tasks consultant is involve in the work at the integration level, participating in the management of a wide variety of business processes (including, for example, training employees in new skills that are need to implement the improvement algorithms proposed by the consultant).
The specified levels differ (apart from the characteristics in essence) in the duration of the interaction cycle between the consultant and his client. The first level is the shortest, the second is longer, and within the third, the consultant’s work can accompany the company’s activities up to its liquidation (transformation or other procedure changing the business model)
