What is a management consulting?
How does a modern company survive in the changing conditions of market relations? How to make a company competitive and promising? These and other questions inevitably arise before the management, forcing them to think about the necessity of professional consulting. Effective help in solving many of the difficulties associated with management and organization of business provides a special kind of intellectual service – management consulting.
Basic concepts
Services of management consulting – solving questions about the necessity of introducing new technologies, working out an effective strategy for company development, and other important problems. In this case, consulting is complex, represents support in various areas of the enterprise, and differs from the usual advisory services:
- a team of professionals from different spheres – legal, financial, management, human resources, audit, production, etc. is involved;
- the latest management methods, professional experience, and specialized knowledge in different areas of business;
- high efficiency of rendered services and solutions to the most important problems in the sphere of management and organization.
The main goals
Problems in the management and organizational spheres of a company are indicative of such features as a financial crisis, lack of prospects and development, a drop in sales, and inability to compete in the market for goods or services. Management consulting services allow correcting the critical situation in the company, creating conditions and prerequisites for improving the situation in favor of stability and further development. Following these principles it is possible to formulate the goals of consulting services in the management sphere:
- objective information about the real situation in the company;
- reforming the management structure and organizational measures;
- preparation of conditions for the realization of large-scale tasks;
- increase in labor productivity and income level;
- reduction of costs and elimination of force majeure situations;
- growth of competitiveness and profitability.
The main purpose of the management consulting is to get a piece of clear, accurate, and reliable information about the causes of regress and stagnation in the company, development of constructive measures for overcoming the existing difficulties and problems.
Main tasks and methods
By attracting professional specialists in the sphere of management consulting training, the management of the enterprise should remember that to receive effective results it is necessary to provide complete information on the state of affairs in the company. The importance of this condition is determined by the tasks of the service:
- assessment of the company’s strategy, based on the current position in the stated market area;
- correspondence of available resources to the goals and tasks set in the company;
- evaluation of functional interaction and administrative subordination;
- analysis of the financial sphere and distribution of funds;
- evaluation of HR policy effectiveness.
Methods of structural analysis and design, standard processes of analysis of documents, data collection, and various diagnostic procedures are used to solve the set tasks.
Step-by-step process
The management consulting services have a sequential character and mainly consist of the following main stages:
- Getting to know the company’s operations and gathering information about existing problems;
- planning of the task based on the complexity of the current situation in the company;
- diagnostics – collection and analysis of necessary information;
- modeling changes – development of solutions, preparation of proposals;
- implementation of changes and transformations, training and technical support;
- an overall assessment of the project, the results achieved, and the final report.
Efficiency and results
Management consulting services are indispensable in various situations (reorganization, merger, investment), when timely and correctly made organizational measures allow directing business in a successful direction. The information received as a result of consulting often serves as an objective view of the real state of the company and a basis for effective forecasting.