Consultant as... A Vendor or A Consultant or An Advisor

What are you to your client or prospective clients... defines your image or the perception of how your contribution would be.

This image and perception allows your efforts to be priced in the right manner and valued.

In the world of Business Consulting, the degree of value perceived, determines whether you are a vendor or a consultant or an advisor.

I believe,

When a consultant offers service as a repetitive or deployment based and support assistance, they become a vendor, where,

• Service becomes a commodity
• Service co-relates with man day/month rates
• Service has a low skill effort with high competition from multiple similar vendors
• Service is a replacement or outsourcing of work, which could have be done by Client own team members
• Service comes at a low price range with high degree of negotiations
• Client cannot expect any value gain from such service, which is more of support & assistance than consulting service.
• A Consultant can transform from Vendor to a Consultant, if they put in an effort bit to add value through the service and try to convince the Client of their worth.

When a consultant offers consulting services which offering knowledge with value, to provide consult to a client, based on consultant's own experience and knowledge, they are considered to be a consultant. In such situation,

• Service is outcome based with expected value add
• Service has a time-bound delivery not related to man-day/month effort
• Service needs higher skilled personnel who are experienced
• Service requires experienced professionals and knowledge generally not available or not possible in existing bandwidths of Client personnel
• Service has a respectable price value with few competitors
• Service fee negotiation is more on technicality than on the price
• Client benefit is high and can expect higher value from the consult
• A Consultant becomes an Advisor or a trusted Consultant, when they prominently add value beyond the mandate and provide strategic inputs.

When a consultant is sought to offer very precise & specific services, purely based on their knowledge and experience, and have a niche value plus prestige to the value of advisory work they offer, then they become an Advisor. In such a case,

• Service is precise and specific
• Service has high importance with time span
• Service is bound to add value for the Client
• Service related ROI is high for the Client
• Service fee will be highly respectable and less negotiable
• Service needs highly skilled and experienced inputs, possible with senior consultants, who are rather Advisors
• Service fee is the worth of time spent by the advisors
• Service offered is only offered by high value consultants not by many
• Service will be the direction for other consultants and vendors to come in to implement
• Client benefits high from an advisor's service because they are the trusted consultants.

When a consultant reaches a superlative stage of being an advisor, they offer the best value and client gets the worth of advise or consult, because they are trusted, respected and paid respectfully for their advise.