Integrated Value Delivery - A Paradigm Shifting Approach in Business Management Consulting

Dictionary defines a consultant as a specialist or an expert in a domain who exchanges their knowhow for a fee. The known history of consulting dates to 1886 and the well-known business and management consulting firms have been here for over a century now. The business world has undergone several transitions and transformations in the last 100 years. One thing which has remained constant is the role or real professional consultant which expects them to be specialist in their domain and follow a focused siloed approach.

The same business owner when faced with a significant challenge calls in for a management consultant to solve the problem. Depending on the size of the consulting firm the business owner may reach a department or a senior partner to solve the problem. With years and years of expertise they convince that they have been there and done it, after all that is what they do for a living.

Cut to the day in the life of a business owner in any part of the world (irrespective of small, medium, or large). He/She must wear several hats in a day, deal with problems across departments, juggle with customer across different geographies and what not. Let’s look at this from a closer perspective, A business owner has to be a Strategist, a strategy evangelist, a strategy implementer, a coach and influencer of teams, a research and development and most importantly a master of operations and relentless disciplined execution.

Anatomy of a Business Problem

As Abraham Maslow said in 1966, "I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail." The concept is attributed both to Maslow and to Abraham Kaplan, although the hammer and nail line may not be original to either of them. With all due respect to the expertise of consultants in their given field and their positive mindset to help the client, when faced with a significant business problem, a single expertise is not good enough. A significant business problem which has huge impact on revenues, resources, customer satisfaction or profits can rarely be attributed to a single department or a problem.

Let us take the most prominent problem on the planet with regards to the pandemic. First, your business is impacted - because neither business nor the customer they serve are certain enough on what is in store. At the same time, business must go on, so all of us are back in action in various capacities. But the pandemic has impacted Strategy, Finance, HR, Technology, Risk Management and of course sales and marketing. What is important to understand is pandemic has impacted the collective outcome of these departments not each of them independently. So which consultant will you go for to solve the issue with regards to a pandemic?

Now I have two kinds of audience here who may not appreciate my point of view ( Which I assure you is absolutely fair)

Type 1 : Ohh.. That's the rare case of pandemic, so no one anyway had the answer!

Type 2: Thats a big big problem, this wont be applicable to every day business problem.

So, let us take a relatively small problem which requires the intervention of a consultant. A sales team unable to make enough sales citing that the quality of the product they sell is not good enough. Now, is this the problem of sales and their attitude? Is this the problem of production and quality team? Is this the problem of an HR team not hiring the right resources in Quality and Sales department? Is this the problem of the packaging or the pricing not being good enough? Is this the problem because the business has not invested in right technologies to track effectiveness of sales team or efficiency and quality of production? Is it because enough due diligence is not done by the risk management team?

Hope you got the hang of where am going with it. When the business is not able to define where the problem is how can they finalize on a specialist to solve it. And when you give an opportunity to a specialist to solve this problem, what tools do you think they often come with, you guessed it right!! The hammer!And can this hammer NAIL THE PROBLEM??

Business environments are under constant transformation and often encounter leverage opportunities and unexpected challenges. The impact of these changes is unprecedented and can cut across diverse domains of business. As businesses grow, they also encounter equal risks and uncertainties and managing risks cannot be kept as an external agenda to strategy and execution. Navigating this complex environment needs businesses to align with advisors who have multi-disciplinary capabilities and an integrated approach. So where are the integrations possible? The integrations are possible in the below areas based on the approach taken in each situation.

Integration of Growth Management Consulting & Risk Management Consulting

Growth and Risk are not disconnected aspects of a business, impact risk is like a shadow of growth, ever present for a growing business. In fact, given the concerns induced by pandemic world may even need a risk led strategic consulting approach for growth strategy. Strategic growth management and risk management must converge and deliver the apt business strategy consulting. The erstwhile consultants can keep building siloed capabilities but the solutions they provide will not solve the real problem of the business if these two lead practices do not integrate well enough. A lot of time, value and opportunity may be lost if the traditional systems of siloed consulting continue as is.

Is it easy to achieve - The answer is a resounding NO. It is tough to achieve because, the consulting organizations themselves may need to undertake a significant Business Transformation within to address this challenge.

Integrated Business Process Management Consulting

With the strategy and risk, itself not merging, can process be left out? Most process management consultants would agree that the biggest impactors of process are during the process handovers rather than within the process itself. So, when we are working within a process, we are working with technology, people, regulations, and supply chains. Outside the process, the handover layers if weak can be huge areas for losing the value created by a meticulous and efficient process design. With processes involved, can people and finance be left out of the equation? Again, is it easy to achieve - NO. It is tough because traditional consultants may need to leavetheir quest for expertise and spend time and efforts to understand theinterlinking layers and the business strategy. This change is not an easy one to induce and manage.

Integrated Value Delivery Framework -How to make it work ?

Can Strategy, Finance, Taxation, People, Process, Technology, Quality, Sales and Marketing consulting can ever be merged and offered? The answer is YES, but what will define its success is the expertise of the consultants and their ability to openly collaborate for a larger cause of generating value for the client. Without boiling the ocean we can bring a horizontal interconnecting layer of People Process and Technology in the consulting services end to create the value which the business owners are looking for.

The fact is that individual assignment wise consulting fees is likely to escalate as we have more consultants now working on problem, to decipher the actual problem and comprehensively solve it. But the biggest advantage is that the probability of the problem getting solved is extremely high with an integrated value delivery approach adopted by the consulting firms.

The overall Annual consulting spend of a business is likley to get significantly optimised as now a same firm can address issues with more rigor and continuity. Hence from a business point of view the Integrated Value Delivery will deliver result oriented consulting at optimized costs.

Consulting industry has never advocated direct, on your face Sales and Marketing, but this may be an area which will undergo transformation with this thought process. Let us accept it, we live in an instant nirvana world where business owners do not have time to read those in depth Thought leaderships and insight dockets released by the lead consulting firms. (Quite a good possibility that this post also meets the same fate :))

To engage with business owners, consulting firms might need to adopt a Key Accounts Management Sales Strategy and a Project Delivery Account Management Strategy so that they streamline the client management process and increase the service orientation for the client.

Last but not the least, it is not important to deliver all services from a single organization. In this connected era, consulting firms can leverage standalone capabilities, integrate with existing vendors at clients, collaborate with partners and competitors and deliver better results by adopting a problem-solving approach.

Being from the industry, i am aware that organizations in this space are trying hard to work out this model through loosely connected initiatives and cross service referral programs. But are they enough to deliver ultimate value which will define the success of a consulting firm?

In close I believe that The essence of business is in creating value by integration of various capabilities, hence the future of consulting is in the ability to consult and generate value by consulting through an Integrated Value Delivery Model.

Author is the Managing Director of CAPITAIRE Consulting Pvt Ltd.At CAPITAIRE we help our clients grow their business ethically, profitably and professionally through our integrated 360 degree management consulting services. The views expressed in this article are personal and not that of my establishment.

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