Insights

Five Reasons to Make Use of External Consultants

As the saying goes, “a consultant will borrow your watch to tell you the time and then charge you for it”. When people say this, they generally mean you should already have the required means within your business to perform any activity that a consultant is attempting to provide. This is however a short-sighted perspective – let’s look at five reasons why you should look at bringing external help into your business.

1. Consultants come with objectivity

The longer people spend time within an organisation, the more they become constrained by their internal understanding of operations, and perceptions of customer needs. This leads to a lack of innovation in processes and curiosity regarding customers, both of which are critical to the sustainability of your business.

Utilizing an external consultant can spark innovation and curiosity as consultants are not inhibited by the day to day running of your business and thus are more likely to ask questions that aren’t necessarily thought of within the business, but can have a significant impact.

2. Consultants can save you overheads

Saying that utilising external consultants can be cost effective for your business may sound counter-intuitive, but let’s unpack this statement. At a glance, you may consider the hourly rate of a consultant significantly higher than the relative rate of a full-time employee, however, consultants get paid only when they work. They do not receive benefits such as sick or annual leave, bonuses or other benefits from your company. They also do not require overheads such as equipment (laptops, telephones, office resources etc).

That’s only the start of it. More importantly, consultants are utilised for more specific project purposes which, once designed, developed, and implemented produce efficiencies or opportunities that are sustained over time without the recurrence of the consulting costs. This means it is an investment that has a positive net present value. Conversely, appointing full time employees to achieve the same thing consultants would, would incur a consistent cost which will in time not contribute further to the specific outcome achieved, meaning you need to constantly find tasks for these permanent resources to warrant the perpetual expense.

3. Consultants enhance your existing capabilities

Most of us think of experience as a function of time, i.e., the longer you have been in a role, business or industry, the greater your specific expertise. The rationale can be sound, implying that the longer you serve in a function, the more elements of concern or factors of impact you have seen and dealt with and the more solutions you would have developed or observed. In short, longer tenure equals more relevant experience.

The purpose of hiring a consultant is to identify areas of concern or opportunity for a business to develop and implement suitable solutions. Consultants perform this across multiple businesses and varying industries which allows us to gain vast knowledge regarding problem solving approaches. In addition, there is collaboration within the consulting firm which exposes consultants to solutions that they may not have necessarily been a part of developing but have been outlined and mapped by their colleagues, thus allowing it to be applied for the benefit of your business.

This is not to say consultants have more experience or a greater level of expertise than the resources of your firm but rather to say that consultants bring a complementary skill set to your business that enhances your existing resources: they are the experts regarding daily activities and requirements of your business while consultants are experts in problem solving and exploiting opportunities. This collaboration allows for the creation of exponential efficiencies and growth in your business.

4. Consultants create capacity for innovation

We are all familiar with the 80/20 principle: 20 percent of the effort gives rise to 80 percent of impact. It’s most often used in business to show that 20 percent of your customers produce 80 percent of your revenue.

This is also applicable to resource capacity in that, 20 percent of working hours should be dedicated to innovation, problem solving or exploiting opportunities and 80 percent of time to day-to-day business processes. That 20 percent will generate 80 percent of your future exponential growth and ensure your business’s longevity.

However, in most businesses, employees can’t dedicate 20 percent of their time to innovation as 100 percent of their time is taken up by daily activities required to keep the business running.

A lack of innovation and evolution is what causes businesses to fail in the long term. Consultants provide additional resource capacity in your company and can be focussed on innovation that adds value to your business, allowing you to future-proof your business without overwhelming your full-time employees. Sometimes, using consultants can also help avoid confusion around role requirements, as full-time employees can be dedicated to keeping the existing business afloat.

5. Consultants make change easier

Change is always a difficult sell and even the most agile companies can be resistant to it. People resist change because:

1. They don’t understand it
2. They don’t trust it
3. They don’t trust the source of it.

Using the right consulting services can help with all 3 of these concerns.

A good consultant will ensure that the concerns of all audiences in the business are understood and therefore tailor communications of the coming changes in a manner that is easily consumable by all audiences. It is difficult to trust what you don’t understand, and a communication plan that incorporates everyone’s concerns can go a long way to address this.

Furthermore, when change is required in an organisation, all new solutions need to be mapped and analysed prior to implementation so that the impact of the solution is clear and communicable. To achieve this, solutions need to be evidence-based and measurable, and by ensuring this, you address potential issues of trust.

Even with the best intentions, management as the source of change can be mistrusted. Utilising an outside, independent consultancy can often assist in solving this, as the independent entity is seen as objective and focussed on the goal of business improvement.

Why Blacksheep Consulting?

With the understanding of the value that can be provided by consulting firms, at Blacksheep Consulting we tailor our services to enhance all these aspects so our clients receive the greatest return on their investment.

Blacksheep signifies our unique approach to generating business solutions which are data-driven and evidence-based, enabling the creation of practical rather than theoretical solutions. Analytics underpin everything we do. We generate solutions in collaboration with your business that are implementable and measurable.

Blacksheep’s founders have a diverse set of complementary skills that enable them to advise on the entire business value chain. This not only allows for an independent point of view but also enables a multi-lens perspective on solution development and impact. We have more than 20 years combined experience, having held strategic roles in retail, supply chain and logistics, digital casinos, financial services, and management consulting. We have also developed expertise in understanding and appropriately communicating to a variety of audiences in a manner that ensures the information is consumable and trusted.

The Blacksheep difference empowers your business to stand out in your industry and gain competitive advantage.