Using Consulting Resources Effectively - Part 2

In our last post we helped categorize your projects.  Today, let's look at the characteristics of external consultancies.

Consultancy Types:

Big Firms - Bring to bear resources across a broad spectrum of industries, technologies and functional areas.  Can meet the needs of the largest of large inititiatives domestically and globally.   Big firms will primarily focus only on these large initiatives to move their "revenue meters”.

Mid Sized Firms - Directly can compete with Big Firms in all but name (branding) and the largest initiatives. Often possess a core strength upon which they were initially founded; be that industry, functionally or technology. 

Management Consulting & Technology Boutiques - Typically made their name in a specific industry, functional area or technology.  Great work, word of mouth and/or a hot technology have allowed growth into larger team based deliveries.

Software/Platform Specific Vendors - The professional services division of a software vendor.  They possess a very high degree of knowledge in their own product and often the specific business functions their product aligns to.

Staffing / Placement Agencies - Focused on augmenting teams, and single resource placements.

Independent Consultants -  Independents are typically used to augment projects or fulfill gaps in on-going operational activities. Specialities, acumen, and skill sets will vary tremendously. Note: in the context described here are truly independent workers, not joined to or aligned with any of our previous categories.

Internal Resources - Although not part of any external consulting organization, may at times augment 10-50+% of any given project's team size.  These internal resources are "do’ers” and officially allocated to a project, even if only part-time.  This category does not include business stakeholders that may provide input throughout a project.

Consultancy Characteristics:

Total Cost of Pricing - The total cost of doing business excluding travel (see below).  This includes: base consultant rates, over-time, over-head costs (partners, directors) and retainers.

Client Focused Flexibility - Willingness and ability to make common sense changes occur quickly for clients. Do small scope changes require a change order? Do legal contracts and statements of work take weeks to negotiate? Do you lack access to frequently interact with the firm's top management?

Team Focused Delivery - Turn key ability to resource all major aspects of a team’s makeup if so requested.

Lean Staffing Models -  Does the consultancy take an aggressive approach to lean project staffing?
Does the consultancy allow for its' resources to cross over into different roles simultaneously?  Are all resources efficiently allocated and being utilized to the fullest? 

Bench Strength - The ability to meet project resourcing demands with the appropriate talent level.

Travel Related Expenses / Out of Town Consultants -  Are >50% of project resources typically incurring out of town travel expenses?  Travel costs can quickly add up when an additional 10-20% is added to direct resourcing costs.

Stay tuned for our next post, where we'll match resourcing options with your project types.

Figure 1.  Consultancy Characteristics Summary Matrix

Figure 2. Consultancy Strengths

Figure 3. Consultancy Weaknesses

About Us:

At CompassX we know all about strategy implementation and project execution excellence. To learn more:

kyleh@compassx.com  |  www.compassx.com | © COMPASSX GROUP, 2013 All Rights Reserved.

Using Consulting Resources Effectively - Part I

You know how it goes...a whiteboard chock full of prioritized strategic initiatives and projects that all need to be implemented this year.  Annual spending budgets may have increased slightly year over year, but certainly not significantly and not keeping pace with business demands.

No longer can your internal business customers wait many months for delivered benefits and results.  The Lifesciences compettitive landscape has only become more and more competitive; patent expirations, generic competition, biosimilars, increased regulatory scrutiny and legal burdens and the higher costs associated with bringing new products and devices to market.

A recent 2012 Accenture Lifesciences industry study states, "The revenue forecasts...reveals how starkly the future prospects have changed for several of the companies over the last three years. The four year forecast (2013-2016) remains low for some companies which continue to struggle to navigate a path back to growth after the worst of the patent cliff. A few even face the prospect of a second round of significant patent expiries and are forecasted to have negative growth. However, several companies are forecast to grow in line with the estimated global market growth of 4-5 percent, having articulated a clear path back to growth and making substantial strategic and operational changes.These companies are adjusting to a “new normal” where profitable growth is still attainable, although harder to achieve." 

Do you have a plan? How will you resource strategic projects this year? This buyer’s guide will assist you in navigating the hazardous landscape of buying consulting services.

Let’s first look at defining your project type.

Project Categories:

Strategy - Architecting new business and IT solutions by shifting previous thinking and adopting new approaches.  Here, our categorization of strategy projects is "pure strategy", it does not include the execution or implementation phases which would later fall into one of the below categories. 

Large Scale Transformational - Efforts attempting to deliver benefits across an entire organization, or multiple business functions simultaneously.  High degrees of business and IT complexity, organizational changes and many moving pieces equates to large:  program budgets, project resources and capital expenditures.

Large Divisional - Delivered benefits intended to impact a single large company division e.g. Research and Development or Sales.  Even the most straight forward implementation will be complex due to size and business criticality. 

Departmental - Vertically organized to produce results that impact specific business functions e.g. Legal, Compliance, Regulatory Affairs.  Smaller in scope and complexity of a Large Divisional program.

Ad Hoc or Incremental - The smallest of the project categories, often used to incrementally build upon previously delivered benefits, for example system enhancements or extensions, and continuous improvements to business processes.

In Part II of this series we will show you a behind the scenes "menu of consulting firms" available to fulfill these project types. 

About Us:

At CompassX we know all about strategy implementation and great project execution excellence.

Learn more: kyleh@compassx.com  |  www.compassx.com | © COMPASSX GROUP, 2013 All Rights Reserved.

Strategy Implementation - Planning a Strong Start

Back a couple years (grin), I used to run the sprints.  I was pretty decent, All New England in college, and set a few school records progressing to the Eastern States Championships in high school.  Except for the start, there is not much strategy to the short sprints; gun goes off, run for as fast and long as your body will allow.  Ah...but that start, a race can be won or lost at that start.  Same goes for strategy implementation, a poor start can cost you the race.   

What are the essentials to strategy implementation planning?

Do’s

• Do realize your best attempts at providing early detailed data points are futile.  Too much early emphasis on obtaining detailed data costs the client time, money, and often provides false positives.  ROI, schedules, cost estimates, Voice of the Customer surveys will be inaccurate, completely incorrect, off by many multiples or all three.  Instead provide basic high level current knowns, be forthcoming on the unknowns and how estimates were determined.

"Use the formula P=40 to 70, in which P stands for the probability of success and the numbers indicate the percentage of information acquired." Part II: "Once the information is in the 40 to 70 range, go with your gut." - Colin Powell

• Do continue to refine and provide greater and greater levels of accuracy on data points as the strategy implementation progresses.  Accurate analysis combined with the phased approach below, will allow for course changes and continuous refinement.

• Do use phases when building your strategy implementation approach.  Three reasons why I favor segmented planning.  1. Speed of business is running at warp speeds, what is needed today will change tomorrow. 2. Benefits delivered today immediately start adding returns. 3. Momentum is a force multiplier.   

Don’t

• Don't wait to build full consensus.  There will always be dissenters, and there is no such thing as the perfect time.  Get key champions on board and blast out of the starting blocks.  Time is a killer of all things, especially true of great ideas and early momentum.  

“I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everyone.” ― Bill Cosby

On your mark, get set, Go!

About Us:

At CompassX we know all about strategy implementation and great project execution excellence, 80% of our client work is focused on nothing else.

You can contact me at kyleh@compassx.com  |  www.compassx.com | © COMPASSX GROUP, 2013

Strategy Execution - The Lost Art

Business can be funny, one moment something is hot, and the next it's gone. Often replacing the tried and true with new, flashy, and easy to use. But is it really built to last? Why have strategy execution failure rates skyrocketed? 

I believe strategy execution has gradually been eschewed, by the formerly great management consulting firms in favor of strategy creation and increased profits, by corporate executives and their management teams trying to keep pace with the new warp speed of changing business and thereby less time and attention focused on actually implementing those necessary business changes, and ultimately by the "do'ers" themselves in favor of sexier projects and fancier bullets on their resumes, after all great project execution is really hard work.

Strategy execution, two very simplistic words, but as I would do with my clients let's break these down to ensure we are aligned in understanding.  Strategy, in itself can be defined as an idea, concept, scheme or plan created to bring forth a competitive advantage or to alleviate a business pain point.  In and of itself a strategy is an idea, hopefully a good one.  But in order to reap its' realized benefits, next it must be broken down into actionable concrete steps.  Execution are these series of steps, implemented, to make the strategy or project materialize.  Without excellent execution, all strategy fails to meet its full potential or worse completely falls flat. See figure #1 below.

Edison and Einstein both often used the quote, "1% inspiration, 99% perspiration", in their respective fields of invention and science.  In the coming weeks I will further break down strategy execution to provide meaningful short takeaways that can be applied immediately within your own organization.

Strategy Execution Benefits Curve

About Us:

At CompassX we know all about strategy execution and great project execution excellence, 80% of our client work is focused on nothing else. I personally have spent the past fifteen plus years learning and applying what it takes to bring a client's strategy to greatness. You can contact me at kyleh@compassx.com 

www.compassx.com