basictraining
BY ART VAN BODEGRAVEN AND
KENNETH B. ACKERMAN
why consultants?
LAST MONTH, WE LOOKED AT THE VARIOUS TYPES
of management consultants operating in the supply chain
management arena, from giant international corporations
to one-man or one-woman shops. Now, let’s examine, albeit
briefly, what they can do and how to find one that fits your
needs.
Why do businesses need consultants? There are lots of
good reasons—a shortage of internal resources, for example, or a lack of specific internal experience. Sometimes it’s
a desire for a fresh perspective or advice from someone with
knowledge of and access to best practices. Many times,
businesses find it helpful to bring in consultants who have
experience with specific technology solutions (like analytic
and decision support tools) or a specific service provider in
order to shorten the learning
curve and ease the transition.
Within the supply chain
management sphere of operations, there are a number of
activities in which consultants—real honest-to-good-ness management consultants—can add genuine value.
These include:
Creating a conceptual
overall supply chain design
Designing a physical distribution network
Creating supply chain strategies for service and performance for the overall supply chain or for specific components
Logistics service provider (LSP)/3PL evaluation, selection, contracting, and management
Litigation support, on either a plaintiff or defendant basis
Across-the-board or targeted cost-reduction analysis
and implementation
Transportation management analysis and improvement
Facility operations improvement
Facility retrofit and upgrade
Facility location
Software evaluation, selection, and implementation
Training and education in supply chain management
concepts and components
Metrics design, implementation, and analysis
Supplier management programs
Process design/re-engineering
Due diligence on other studies (the “insurance policy”)
Performance management (productivity) programs.
The list could be longer—much longer—but you get the
drift. The trick is to find the right consultant for the right
problem. Maybe a consultant can help with that task, too—
really, we’re serious.
Finding the right consultant
How do you select a consultant? What’s important in a consulting relationship? And where do you find one in the first
place? We’ll struggle to respond to these questions without
being too self-serving (we hope).
First, consider what type of consultancy you’re looking
for. If your organization is culturally welded to a mega-firm
approach, it’s usually pointless to open the bidding to a lot
of sole practitioners. On the other hand, if the organization
is confident and secure, the sole practitioner can be marvelously time- and cost-effective. If the problem has some
complexity, the small/mid-sized firm, or a team of sole
practitioners, can be the right way to go.
As for how to find a consultant, there are many options.
One is to use directories. The Council of Supply Chain
Management Professionals has one, but it is incomplete.
Another method—actually an excellent way—is to talk
with industry peers. Networking in your professional community is also a good way to get the lowdown on consulting professionals.
Yet another option is to go to the Internet, which is currently generating consulting contacts at a level undreamed of
just a couple of years ago. Anybody worth anything has a
Web site. A cautionary note: Concentrate on Web site content
versus gee-whiz site design and graphic effects. Emphasis on
the superficial might be more revealing than the firm
involved realizes.
But how do you know whether a consultant is any good?
Competence can be evaluated from references and from
experience. Experience means stuff the actual people on the
job have actually done, hands on, not the endless list of
organizational qualifications. Cautionary note: IT application experience is not the same as operating experience.
Presuming competency, the final selection will generally
come down to chemistry, style, and comfort. Typically, you
are going to be working with the consultant(s) for some
time. Tolerance of a style mismatch wears very thin, very
quickly.
There are a few additional points. As you evaluate the
possibilities, look for a good listener, one who’s more interested in you and your business than in his own credentials.
