Finally, you can freely choose what you really need to solve the problems your company is facing.
How? Through a business consultant.
We are talking about a category of professionals fundamental to the development of the economy. Business consultancy is also called ‘management consultancy’ or ‘management consulting’ and is a rapidly developing sector, with over 23,000 companies.
Management consulting deals with different aspects of business life, from production, administration, finance, law, marketing and much more to IT consulting.
The main question is, would you entrust a business consultancy with the present and future of your company?
It’s easy to give a positive answer, but business consultants are people like any other and not all of them are suitable for all businesses. You need to find the right one for competence and empathy with the entrepreneur/owner.
Various consultancy companies offer their services with the typical situation of the Italian company in difficulty in mind, which is:
a) Checking the capacity of their staff
b) Increase turnover.
Is this approach correct? It could be, although it is certainly not exhaustive of the problems that a company may encounter.
If you are looking for real help, the business consultant can give you a big hand, but how do you know it is the right one for you?
The easiest way is to check whether the proposed interventions will only be successful in the short term (3 or 4 months) or are designed for the long term (1 or 2 years), in other words whether they will act in a structural manner on the company or whether they will just be a plaster on a serious wound that continues to bleed.
Let us return to the two cases highlighted above:
a) Checking the capacity of one’s employees
The first thing to check is whether the failure to achieve the company’s objectives is mainly due to a lack of strategy on the part of the company, a lack of motivation or both.
In the case of a lack of strategy, it is clear that immediate action must be taken by implementing a winning business strategy that works by taking into account the situation of the target market and the needs of individual customers.
In the second case, lack of incentives and motivation, it will be necessary to operate purely on the motivation of individual employees by developing personal objectives, training and motivational courses in which the company will question itself by listening to the problems and needs of individual employees, then taking the necessary measures, in extreme cases replacing some employees who are not up to scratch.
In the third case (lack of strategy and low motivation) it will be enough to implement a sound strategy which will most probably also serve as an incentive for the employees, perhaps by involving them in the definition of the strategy as they have real knowledge of the external market.
This is usually a highly critical point for the company, which is not always easily attributable to one single cause. The causes may lie anywhere, from a wrong sales strategy (price out of the market or quality not at the level of the competitors), to external causes, such as changed market conditions that have not yet been understood by the company.
It is also true that there may be a problem of salespeople who, after so many years, are no longer trying to expand the customer portfolio, but simply manage the customers they have already acquired so that they do not have to work so hard to achieve the minimum targets. How can this problem be solved?
In this case, there are not many ways to go about it: either motivate salespeople with various courses in negotiation techniques and with a new sales policy in which, however, some objectives will be common, i.e. part of the bonus is linked to the fact that everyone reaches the assigned objectives.
If one or more colleagues do not reach their targets, the other salespeople have only two ways to go: they can invoice more to make up the shortfall, or they can help their colleagues to do more.
Obviously there is also a last resort, the replacement of salespeople with new ones who are better trained and more motivated, but this has a significant intrinsic cost.
And what if the problem were linked to products/services that are no longer attractive to the market because they are obsolete and/or have a price list that is totally out of line with the market?
Well, in this case, the solution will have to be a strong self-criticism of the company that will have to verify the feasibility of making the products/services attractive again with a price list that is adequate for the reference market.
This, however, will entail the need to have available capital to invest in R&D, which is not necessarily the case.
Therefore, there will be a strong risk that the company, despite all the efforts of the owner and the company consultants to find the most suitable solution (search for fresh capital to invest in the company, new partners, etc.), will have to be sold to someone with the right resources to relaunch it or, alternatively, the inevitable cessation of business.
At this point you may be asking yourself, can business consulting really help solve these problems?
The answer is yes, but as already written, they don’t have a magic wand. Business consultants will help you identify the problems, they will propose the best solutions but it will always be up to the owner/entrepreneur/manager responsible to decide whether to apply them in full or only in part, but, most importantly, they will teach you how to deal with the problems if they should arise again.
However you think about it, a business consultant can become an important added value for your company, don’t wait any longer, contact him or better yet…. contact me…
marco.ramponi@mramponiconsulting.com