We get this question a lot… Is Leadership Services a business consultancy? The short answer is, no. Although there are overlaps, there are some key differences too, which we’ll go into detail about later. While more than 63,000 business consultants in the UK alone, it’s easy to see why companies hire them, and if you’re thinking about doing so, we’re here to change your mind.
To put it simply, a business consultant or a business consultancy offers guidance and advice to businesses and organisations to help them succeed. They have a broad range of skills and experience paired with a substantial depth of knowledge. They then use this to help businesses resolve issues, increase sales and revenue, maximise strategy and generally add value to the business in question.
Businesses usually bring in a consultant when they have a challenge to overcome in a specific area, this can be anything from HR and marketing to sales, operations or finance. The main difference, when compared to a part-time Director as offered by Leadership Services, is that they operate externally. Part-time Directors on the other hand join your company and sit on your executive team to help guide your strategy from within.
The type of business consultant a business hires will depend on the hurdles they are looking to overcome. Regardless of which type of business consultant you need, there’s a certain set of skills required to actually be a consultant and provide business advice.
If your business is looking to improve overall performance and encourage growth, you’ll want to work with a business management consultant. These guys tend to work across a number of departments to remove silos and encourage greater unification and collaboration across the board. They’ll observe the company and provide an overall audit of its current procedures and from there, offer advice in terms of where things can be improved and follow up with a recommended action plan.
Although some consider the job of a strategy consultant to be similar to that of a management consultant, the role is actually slightly different. A strategy consultant advises organisations on high-level decisions regarding a specific topic or issue, whereas management consultants identify issues for the business as a whole.
You guessed it. IT consultants review existing IT infrastructure and offer planning and advice on where things can be improved and where new or updated hardware or software can be installed to improve processes – from both internal and external perspectives.
An operations consultant is there to improve the efficiency and value chain of the company. The services they provide can be anything from developing and implementing target operating or service delivery models to executing cost reduction programmes and optimising overall business processes.
This role involves working within a companies’ marketing department to create advertising materials, increase sales, and develop the customer base to support and encourage exposure of the company’s brand. The advice a marketing consultant provides should be centred around how the company can better target and interact with its audience.
This one pretty much does what it says on the tin. A finance consultant provides financial services advice for businesses, usually offering guidance on how and where a company should put its money. This includes everything from budgeting, green or red lighting high-cost purchases and investments to retirement, trust and estate planning.
Businesses need to look for a mixture of both technical skills and personal qualities and ensure these complement the business to help ensure success. Due to the very nature of the role of a consultant, some of these skills can only be learned with experience.
Chances are, many people in the business have already tried to solve the issues the business faces before hiring someone, so the consultant needs to look past the obvious to provide a new angle and solution to the problem.
This is the big one and it’s normally the reason why a business brings on a consultant in the first place, to solve an issue. Problem-solving skills and experience in doing so should be at the top of the CV.
We’ve already said it above but to reiterate, there’s little point in finding all the answers and providing a solution if it’s not then properly communicated to the right people. Having good communication skills is half the job for a consultant.
While a consultant may possess the ability to perceive abstract concepts, unless they can then relay these to the rest of the team or business, they’re a bit useless. Consultants with proven experience in pairing conceptual thinking with a practical approach are the ones to look for.
These two traits may sound worlds apart but trust us, they’re not. Consultants need to be able to lead a company to better success, that’s obvious, but to do so, they must interview whole departments. Doing this empathetically takes great skill but is key to having cooperative employees.
If a business has a problem, they normally want it resolved as quickly as possible. They need to make the most of their available time to provide real value, and they need to do this in such a way that limits employee disturbance and promotes business continuity.
One of the key differences between a business consultant and a part-time director is how they’re implemented and work within the business (if you’re wondering why you should hire part-time instead of full, take a look at this recent blog).
A business consultant will often be hired on a contractual basis for a fixed period of time and work as so. If a business hires a part-time director, they’re getting an employee that acts under the business as an extension of its existing team.
Due to the way in which they work, a part-time director inherently has much more accountability than a hired business consultant as they are so integrated within the company and will often work longer-term with a business to achieve its goals.
So, we’ve covered a couple of the differences between a business consultant and a part-time director now. Below is a table of some of the key benefits you’ll get working with the latter over the former.
Hiring a part-time Director means you’re bringing someone on with experience and a track record of success. In short, it’s someone you can trust to get the job done.
No long-term contracts or 3-6 month notice periods. If your needs change, we can quickly arrange a change of personnel.
Small businesses can access the experience and expertise of top-level business leaders at a significantly lower cost than hiring a full-time Director.
Our part-time Directors can start as soon as you need them, and our flexible contracts mean you can scale commitments up and down as needed.
Unlike consultants, our Directors lead your team from within, actively taking ownership of all strategic decisions and project delivery.
A part-time Directors is a team member, not just a consultant – we join your team to deliver strategic vision and transformative leadership from within.
Call us today on 0330 236 8932 or Schedule a call directly into our calendar.
