A consultant is a professional specialist who advises companies in solving problems that could not be solved internally.
Organizations are constantly facing problems, adversities and questions about the market , processes and their products, and sometimes the experience of their professional team is not enough to solve them, so they need to hire an expert in that area, to help them to go afloat and see a clear horizon again.
The consultant: an external agent
The consultant has the characteristic of being an expert in an area. For example, accounting services could be considered consulting services in accounting , since the company could not have professionals with the knowledge to make balance sheets, financial statements or tax returns .
Likewise, a lawyer provides legal advice when the company is faced with legal proceedings, or else, it needs to carry out procedures that require legal representation.
The common aspect of these services and all those called “consulting” is that they are performed by professionals outside the company. They are not in the organization chart, nor do they have a permanent contractual relationship, rather they offer a service to solve something specific and in a certain time.
The new services that have required consultants
But the competitiveness of the markets has required companies to request assistance in other areas to maintain their position and create a branding of excellence.
Areas where consulting is required:
- Strategic communication:The relationship between the company in its role of “brand”, needs to interact assertively with the public and sometimes, problems that contravene the name of the brand can be generated, so it is necessary to quickly follow the step of that situation. For example, Starbucks some time ago was in the eye of social networks, after expelling a customer from one of its restaurants, apparently because of its skin color.
Faced with this situation they had to apologize and execute forceful actions to assume their mistake and not lose a significant percentage of customers. The action was to close all their restaurants at the same time, during a day and communicate that during that time employees would be trained in racial inclusion. A decision that was advised by a communications specialist and very well received by public opinion.
- Coaching and team leadership:Motivation in a work team is crucial and, although it is known by all those who make up a company, sometimes that motivation is not convincing enough to generate actions that improve the work environment and performance.
It is for this reason that companies are asking coaching consultants , to advise them and especially the managers and managers who are in charge of teams of people, on how to generate motivation, improve the work environment and create a challenging environment.
- Corporate social responsibility: There are companies that have a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) department, and others that outsource this service, especially when the company is installed in a new territory or city. Therefore, they need advice from someone who knows the place, its culture, customs and interests, in order to generate an approach and subsequent link between the company and its environment. This can bring great benefits and make an important difference, since a company that does not establish ties with the territory in which it is located, is very likely to generate reticence among citizens, due to ignorance of the interests and projects that it has and if they could eventually be affected.
Consulting services are on the rise and at the same time have become a new way of working ” freelance “, serving several clients and increasing the experience with each of them.
If you are interested in being a consultant, then we recommend you specialize in an area that you are passionate about, study, research and create hypotheses of existing problems, to subsequently propose creative, innovative solutions that increase the value of the organization.
