My friends asked me recently: why did you call your services Business Advisory, instead of just consulting?
There are a number of reasons to use precise name to specify exactly what we are doing and how.
Of course, the difference exists in the essence of terms, regardless of the entity, which provides actual service, individual or corporate. In each case, the service provider is an expert in the particular field of knowledge. The crucial issues are how broad and how deep must be an expertise required. Is it a one-time solution of specific task or a long term solution, which client seeks for to properly structure its business and develop sustainable approach for a strategy development?
Business consultant is welcomed in case a client needs to resolve very specific, properly defined task with multiple almost similar solutions, like what kind of product, machine, technology, or a system to choose to ensure the best possible solution in a particular case. Of course, provided that consultant is independent, have strong reputation and well known in this field. It is exactly the case when a deep expertise required in the very narrow field of knowledge.
Another case - client needs to build a strong approach in long term strategy development, analysis of possible scenarios in external business environment, relevant modeling of financial outcome for each of the scenario under consideration, current business processes optimization or even complete reengineering of the old ones. This sort of tasks does not have an immediate and standard resolution, requires thorough analysis of the existing state of affairs to find a range of solutions and then to choose the best one. Multiple Business Analysis tools are necessary and strictly required to use in the process of digging a problem. The range goes from Root Cause Analysis in the relatively simple case, up to the Balanced Scorecard system development as a tool in building and strengthening of a sustainable competitive advantage for a company with ambitious owners, defining strategic goals for their business and looking for a tool to control the process of strategy pursuing. Definitely it is not a task for a day, week or even a year. This category of clients needs a reliable counterpart to check and verify their solutions on the regular basis. This counterpart is useful when you need a key independent reference point in intra corporate discussions at bifurcation points of strategy development. Alternatively, in the situation when you need to make a right decision in unforeseen obstacles. Obviously, such a counterpart must have broad knowledge in a number of business disciplines, profound expertise in some of them, multiyear experience in business communications and ability to structure deals on the basis of project management standards. In fact, this is the level of Business Advisory.
This, of course, does not mean that there is no overlap between Advisors and Consultants. Just the opposite. The business world is very complex and multidimensional. Human life is so short that it is impossible to know everything and be quite useful in every possible case. That is why mutually beneficial cooperation between Advisors and Consultants exists and works great. An example of outsourcing work - a Business Advisor seeks specific expertise in a very narrow area to solve technology problems and requests for a Business Consultant opinion. Conversely, the Consultant requests the Advisor’s opinion in order to better understand the Customer’s needs from a broad point of view. Sometimes this is true - the Client does not have a full understanding of the driving forces of the market and may overestimate the period of time, during which a particular instrument might be used. As a result, the requested equipment resource is much greater than it can be used and depreciated in the forecasted period of time under current circumstances. Therefore, the best solution in this case is to look for another tool/equipment or take it on operational lease.
So, what is the first option to choose, Consultant or Advisor? It really depends on what kind of problem a Customer faces. In case a Customer needs to make fast, short-term decision in a very specific business niche, think about a Consultant. However, it may not resolve fundamental issues of Customer’s business, which lay in the long-term strategy definition and implementation. It is an Advisor who will tell the Customer what kind of problem needs to be addressed after all to make Business sustainable for a longer period and avoid repetitive appearance of a problem and the situation, when the postponed treatment of an illness becomes much more expensive (or it is even too late to cure the decease).
In fact, it is a smart, hands-on approach, which can bring a lot of efficiency into your Customer’s business.
