Think of a management consultant, and flashes before the eyes – a blazing image of a C-suited sharp-witted super human no less than a knight rider in shining armor, who ventures into the scene as a savior, and renders massive synergy to the organization at all the fronts where it had been failing, and sails it through the entire canyon of obstacles.
Hold on! That’s the impression usually failing organizations carry about management consultants, hoping to be sailed through the troubled waters. That’s not just one impression about them, there are lot more, what we’ll refer to as chaotic opposite.
Of course, management consultants consult their way to take businesses on front-stage to perform, dissolving all the obstacles that come in the way, innovating better ways of carrying business processes. They offer services across all business areas, from HR to IT, marketing to finance. Yet, some conservative corporates developed an image about them leading to hiding sneers and raised brows by many pondering “why management consulting?”
Call it their bad experience or corporate conservatism, there are some perceptions that have cast a spell over the image of management consultants, which needs to be dispelled!
Let’s learn about some astonishing myths associated with management consultants, that you may even relate with – both as a consultant and an organization.
That’s the most common perception people carry about management consultants. They think that they work only with the CEOs! That may be right for many projects but does not mean, happens every time.
Management consultants deal with CEOs of organizations but quite often, work with Vice Presidents and manager-level executives too, on routine basis. Of course, they have really high-profile network. In fact, in some companies that are yet to establish, they shake hands even with no great shakes of today who though become the chief executives in future, eventually adding to their contact list of noted achievers.
Myth #2: Living Life King-Size
Yes, management consultants travel a lot! Well, frequent travellers for business objectives may be mistaken for leading a great lifestyle – flying in business class to avant-garde locations, savoring gourmet meals, and checking-in worth a king’s ransom hotels.
What a perfect life, isn’t it!
Well, the reality speaks of something that has really nothing to do with all these imaginations. The management consultants who travel quite often to attend back to back meetings, do that at the expense of their organized routine and lot of family time. To meet tough targets on strict deadlines, they manage with long working hours that leave their minds boggling over various critical matters that they might have discussed with the management of the client organization they had been working for.
They constantly stay under pressure to deliver. Mostly weekends are the times when they get back home only to meet the family requirements, trying to patch up for the lost commitments.
They may be visiting exotic locations, but with the client, hardly to notice any scenic beauty, and that makes all the difference. To prepare themselves for the next meeting or presentation scheduled to be conducted real soon, they feel like running out of time all the time. No matter how fancy, the hotel they may be staying in, the enormous amount of workload and accountability makes them just reach to the hotel room in wee hours and crash on the bed, only to wake up to another day of challenges.
Not to miss, it may not be the luxurious abodes for them every time as it all depends upon where the client is based, and wishes to meet – it may even be a 2-star hotel in a small town!
Myth #3: Advising What They Knew & Nothing New
Many firms believe that the management consultants provide what they already knew.
The fact is, as soon as a management consulting firm engages with the client firm, it first invests its significant amount of time in understanding the business processes. The industry may be familiar but owing to different operational standards of every company, it becomes inevitable for the consultants to get familiar with the unique ways of processing by the company too.
Their major job commences only with the firm’s nod over their reports pertaining to their understanding, presented to them. Understanding the processes, identifying the problem areas, and resolving the challenges, are the major objectives of management consultants, with the key objective being the added value to the business, which usually remains unseen by employees of the firm.
All they see is the firm’s gratuitous step that is leading to nowhere.
Myth #4: Recommendations for the Keepsake and Not for Implementation
A management consultant performs lot of research and analytics to identify the factors that may open the gateway to opportunities for organizations, by improving their processes. Once they determine the same, they give formal presentations that comprises of all the data in the form of graphs and charts, along with a separate doc of recommendations that the client organization needs to implement and the associated cost.
Some client organizations implement these recommendations completely or partially, while some just keep the recommendation file in the shelf, due to various limitations and reservations regarding their implementation. Mostly the clients take a back seat after realizing the cost of implementation and not finding it ‘practical,’ and as the time passes by, they don’t even think about it.
Those who consider these recommendations compromise on the scope of improvement to minimize the cost, and that’s how what is intended, stays far from becoming a reality.
A management consultant can only provide ‘consultation’ and not implement what is required just like a doctor, who can explain you about dos and don’ts for your health, prescribe you the medicines, but cannot force you to do what is required.
So be them the doctor or a management consultant, blaming them about the miseries is certainly not right, for they can only advise, and not undertake them.
Myth #5: Being Over-Paid for Quotidian Tasks
That’s the complaint usually by the permanent employees of the client company against management consultants, who find the cost of consultation which is on hourly basis, quite hefty. They forget about the fixed amount a regular employee gets paid forever, even while they are on leave, apart from medical insurance.
Whereas, the consultant does not get paid, in case takes even a small break. Once the project is over, they bid adieu.
So, logically that ‘exorbitant’ hourly cost of consultation gets on the same pane, or may be on reversed ones, owing to the value-add offered by the consultant in the end, which may not be promised by the hireling.
There might arise other thoughts such as whether to trust a consultant who carries more knowledge than you, as they may act ‘smart’ enough to make you spend more. Well, there has to be some level of trust that you need to develop while assessing all that they would be doing for your business. In fact, the right person would maintain transparency with you by explaining about all the costs and risks associated, and would give you ample space and time to think over and take your own decision, or at least share your concern.
The Concluding Lines…
These myths may still seem to be the fact to some as even a few exceptions carry the ability to damage the reputation of one and all. To stay in the industry and lead, mostly the consultants stay on the mission to provide value-add to the businesses with their commitment, resilience, and the ability to instil changes for good, and deliver measurable results within a specific timeline.
Tarika Technologies offers value-driven management consulting services to transform the way organizations function, looking for growth. Our management consulting solutions are created in alignment with business strategies, goals and objectives of the organizations, and help them in optimizing their business operations.
Joe leads the company’s strategy development and team building processes to formulate and enact the mission and goals. His strategic decisions involve the commitment of various resources for the fulfilment of goals and purposes of the organization, with a positive impact on its various aspects of growth.
With over 30 years of leadership experience, Joe has lead transformation projects, new business ventures, and execution of change management strategies.
In his previous role in C/C Financial Corp, a start-up financial technology business, Joe served as President & CEO. The start-up was scaled up and acquired by a large publicly traded company.
Joe started PeakFormance Leadership Consulting, a leadership and strategy advisory firm that specializes in helping busy executives develop high-performing team and organizations. His experience and proven strategies have helped him lead organization development projects with Fortune 500 companies as well as small to medium size start-ups.
With a strong passion for leadership, Joe has demonstrated the ability to develop cohesive teams, aligned and collaborative teams that achieve extraordinary results. Joe’s passion for leadership and team-building and vast experience enable him to connect with executive leaders and partner with them to improve performance.
Joe holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Minnesota State University, and an MBA in Organization Leadership from Walden University. He enjoys spending time traveling, golfing and training for Ironman triathlon competitions.
WILLIAM ANSAH
Head of Africa Operations, Tarika Group
20+ years of professional experience
William Yaw Ansah, Chairman, and CEO, Origin8 Limited in Ghana is an accomplished executive with experience spanning multiple sectors – Publishing, International NGOs, Education, Consultancy, and more.
Most recently, William was appointed as Course Manual Author Monitor for Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana. He was also appointed as a Member of the Management Committee, School of Arts, University of Ghana. He is also a Member of the Institute of Directors Ghana, an Accredited Member of the Institute of Public Relations, and a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketers, U.K
Over the years, he has been a mentor and advisor to a number of new ventures in Ghana and has trained several organizations such as SSNIT, Ghana Revenue Authority, Ghana Water Company Limited, National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Programme among others.
William has authored a number of books such as Simple English for Senior High Schools in Ghana, Simple English books for Primary Schools in Ghana, and Simple English books for kindergarten, among others.
William received his Master’s degree in Global Marketing from the University of Liverpool, the U.K, and a Bachelor’s degree in Liberal Arts from the University of Ghana, Ghana. He started his career in Ghana as an Instructor, Consultant, and later management member of Afram Publications, Sahabia Publications, Comland Ghana, Origin8 Limited to mention a few.
SACHIN AGRAWAL
Founder & CEO, Tarika Group
20+ years of professional experience
Sachin has over twenty years of experience managing innovation and development of solutions and optimizing complex business processes; Business & Technology Architecture and Integrations. His proficient leadership and exceptional communication skills, technical expertise, combined with industry experience have delivered extraordinary results for his firm and clients.
Sachin instituted Tarika Technologies to support businesses by implementing a strong process-oriented system and the virtual CIO model, managing a team of offshore and onsite professionals. He performs complete business and technology assessment, advises on Enterprise Architecture and provides solutions for mid to large companies, globally. Under his leadership, Tarika Technologies has acquired several key accounts, providing Enterprise Solutions, Infrastructure Solutions (PaaS, IaaS, SaaS), Software & Web Solutions and Mobile Applications.
In addition, Tarika Technologies provides technology and communications infrastructure set up and has successfully launched several products in the ERP, Communication, Entertainment & Media domains. Today, Tarika stands as a global company with presence in America, Asia, and Africa.
Sachin is the CIO to a leading firm in Bethesda, Maryland USA that provides acquisition support services; and technical advisor to the Crisis Center Hotline located in the state of Maryland in the United States. During his career, he also served as Director of Information Technology at a prestigious infrastructure management firm in the DC area providing IT consulting, infrastructure design and enterprise solutions for small to large corporations all around the mid-Atlantic region, as well as governmental organizations. His innovation in business process has led to a patent with the United States Patent and Trademark Offices for one of his clients.
Sachin’s keen interest in International business has formed key alliances and relationships worldwide apart from just Technology. In recent times, he has partnered with Origin8 Limited, a leading PR & Advertisement firm located in Ghana, extending all the products and services offered by Tarika to the African region. As an integral part of this partnership, Origin8 will be heading the sales and marketing of EBIMS AirWatch in the West African market; a cloud-based ERP solution by Tarika, supporting the needs in the Media industry providing real time strategic planning, monitoring, management of operations, automation of collections and complete digitization of payments through integrations to local payment gateways. He is also the Chief Technology Advisor for Origin8 Limited, driving advanced digital solutions for clients in Ghana; and introducing customized ERP for businesses across West Africa.
His keen interest in international business has formed key alliances and relationships worldwide in areas aside technology. Other areas of his expertise include managing and streamlining business processes, vertically independent Enterprise Architecture, Infrastructure Management, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, high-level network and systems architecture, design and development capabilities of secure distributed applications for both private as well as governmental organizations.
Sachin holds a Master of Science in Information Architecture with highest honors; a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Associates in Computer Engineering Technology from Capitol Technology University in Maryland, USA. In his leisure, Mr. Agrawal enjoys playing musical instruments and practices Haidong Gumdo, the Korean swordsmanship, as a senior martial arts practitioner. His personal blog can be found at www.sachinagrawal.com.
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