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The Top Consultancy Sector Challenges and How to Handle Them

The Top Consultancy Sector Challenges and How to Handle Them

As technology becomes much more sophisticated and business structures are undergoing constant changes, consulting services have become utterly crucial to successes in any industry. Whether it be healthcare and financial services, consulting firms are needed whenever there are management issues that organizations will have to address.

For sure, hiring such a firm opens up a company to various opportunities that would have otherwise gone under the radar. For instance, in a Forbes article by Tim Worstall, companies hire management consultants to break the deadlocks between CEOs and their subordinates. Enacting changes requires the support of a consulting professional who can provide workable solutions that will break down barriers to success.

For small businesses, consultants are highly valuable in keeping things in tip-top shape. For Robert Half, consulting services for SMEs can pave the way to better growth in the future. By taking in advice from seasoned professionals in the consulting industry, small businesses can lay the groundwork for long-term plans.

The world needs consultants, and businesses will have to realize just how crucial it is to hire firms that can help them succeed. The demands for consulting services in healthcare, financial services and IT are growing larger every year, compelling firms to improve their operations.

But just like the industries that they help out, consulting firms will also have to do battle with their own dragons. Forgone, getting ahead of the competition is one goal every firm in this industry will have to underscore. But there’s more to the challenges in business consulting than meets the eye.

For that reason, we have identified the most critical of these challenges and the activities needed to address them.

Adapting to technological changes

Social media is one train that won’t stop for anybody, not even Superman! In other words, adapting to new technology has become a requirement for businesses to stay competitive, and it applies to consulting firms as well. Indeed, client demands have changed in the course of a decade and are for this reason that firms should have a well-defined digital strategy to get things going. More importantly, this challenge also

Action plan:

Work with IT to determine the services that you need to change and modify your business model to make it well-suited for your clients’ demands. On the marketing side, you can adopt database management systems to better handle client information and optimize your audience outreach activities.

Marketing the brand

As always, marketing is one challenge that is always seen as getting in the way. It honestly doesn’t work that. In fact, marketing is the activity that’s needed to translate your vision into tangible results. Rather than seeing it as a problem, firms should instead determine how to reinforce their marketing strategies.

Action plan:

Communicate value through multi-channel marketing. Focus on your audience’s pain points and structure your messages based on how you are going to address their problems.

Related: How to Get Consulting Leads without Hassle: A Guide for Singaporean Firms

Hiring talented individuals

You can never go wrong with the team that you currently have. They are the ones who are on the frontlines, and they are also the ones who are responsible for bringing the firm closer to its revenue goals. And now that clients are demanding for new types of services, firms will have to invest in skills that align with new offers. Current staff should be further strengthened by hiring supervisors with the most crucial leadership skills or have them undergo retraining to update their skills and capacities.

Action plan:

Focus your hiring campaigns on sites such as LinkedIn. Also, have HR and frontline collaborate and agree on the proficiencies needed by your firm.

Brand building

In a 2017 online report, Statista lists “maintaining a positive public image” as the least of worries for any consulting firm. In fact, only 24 percent of all respondents in the report have noted that their reputations are more important than adopting the right technologies or hiring the right skills for their businesses. This is not to say that brand-building should stay on the sidelines. In fact, consulting services will still need to improve their brands to open up more opportunities for growth.

Action plan:

Use client referrals and testimonials to improve your credibility. You also need to provide thought leadership through such strategies as guest posting and influencer marketing.

Related: 20 FREE Marketing Tools to Get your Brand Out There

Marketing Starter Kit for your Consulting Business in Singapore

Marketing Starter Kit for your Consulting Business in Singapore

As per dictionary, consultants are subject matter experts in their field who give professional advice or services. If indeed they were, did they have to seek advice from other experts to start their consulting business?

A consulting business, though the name itself may sound perfect and tall, would always have to start from scratch just like any other businesses would. Apparently, a business plan which would basically include the marketing processes and tools would have to be designed in order to start the ball rolling. Take a look on the following helpful marketing tools that you may refer to to start your consulting business:

Market Identification

Let’s start off with identifying who and what type of customers would be for the business.

If you’re an IT consultant then your target customers would be IT firms and professionals but are non-experts. With such positioning, these target customers project a high percentage chance of having the need for your expertise. Though the process may require a rigid filtering effort like customer profiling and use of advanced technologies like lead nurturing and automation tools, this however will provide you a well- targeted and qualified database of customers who are the most qualified candidates who have the need of your expertise. So keep an ID of your customers with the following basic details:

  • Demographical: business name, contact person, address, industry type, phone numbers, social media info, email, size and annual ROI.
  • Psychological: Purchase behavior, timeframe and decision-making process.

Business Projection

What’s your edge over your competitors? The unique characteristic of your business will make your business stand out from the crowd. The standards would generically identify you as a consulting business but making a difference from the following aspects will identify you as a brand. Have a handful of the following references from Rattleback:

Process, Methodology & Tools

You may conjure in-house strategies and tools that were proven effective and deliver results but analyze your strengths and weaknesses as well as you might also need to outsource a third party provider’s expertise and look into other options to help you expand your market reach or to expedite the sales process. Schaffer Consulting’s WorkOut methodology can help.

Skills, Practices and Culture and Philosophy

Results should justify the goals – is a standard norm. But what you do between point A to point B matters and factors in the end result like hiring the right talents, training and empowering employees with knowledge and learning tools to maximize their skills and capabilities. Accenture has a lot to say about that.

Brand and Communication

The standard SOPs of a consulting firm will identify you as one but the way you present yourself and how you communicate with customers will mark a difference on you as a brand. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes may be an old customer service cliche but no doubt works effectively still.

Related: How to Make Current Customers in Singapore Renew Their Contract with Your Company

Thought Leadership

Content has become one of the most effective media in disseminating service or brand information when done right and that’s thought Leadership. It’s a valuable tool to draw customers into the business however critical when editorial procedures are below standards. Topic approach, compelling ideas and timely manner of distribution are important factors to adhere to in order for thought leadership to work best. Check  Bob Buday for that.

Strategic Planning

Strategies and project plans would probably be the most inconsistent aspects of the business as you would need to redefine these two along the way – and that’s normal but ensure back up strokes in cases where your current marketing strategy won’t deliver your target results. Take a look at the following simple sample scenarios and the corresponding backup:

  • If you’re looking into running an in-house lead generation campaign but short on a good list of targets, you may rent or purchase a database. It’s not safe to dive when you’re not sure of the depth of the water. Don’t waste your marketing resources on a dirty business list.
  • If you’ve been working out a content marketing but not generating quality leads, check on the topics you create: are these compelling enough to draw interest from customers or are just good for a 30 second browsing? If you’re not sure yet, this dummies guide for content marketing might help you as well.
  • If you’re outsourcing an appointment setting campaign but could hardly get interested prospects who have the need for your expert advice, check your list – are the contacts profiled and targeted with need and interest, if not then you may have to run a profiling campaign.  

Related: How to Get Targeted Business List in Singapore with the Help of Outsourced Lead Gen Company?

Starting a consulting business is no different from all other start ups that would require a clear market identification, a proper business projection, a clear branding and communication, an effective thought leadership and a flexible strategic planning.

So going back to the question, do business consultants need to seek advice from other experts like marketing specialists at that matter to start their business? Well, this article wouldn’t have been created if they did.