Smart Consulting Sourcing

Procurement transformation is at the core of capturing maximum value from your consulting spend, and our six levers can help you achieve just that. But before initiating that process, business leaders and stakeholders must understand and accept that the procurement transformation will impact the entire organization, and the company as a whole can benefit from what best-in-class procurement can offer. But for any change to take place, procurement needs the blessings of the top management and stakeholders. Ironically, they often do not care, and this nonchalance only reflects the absence of synergy between business lines and procurement. Changing this mindset is the first step to optimizing your consulting ROI. In this week's Smart Consulting Sourcing episode, Our Expert Helene Laffitte explains all there is to know before you start using our 6-Levers of Optimizing the ROI of your Consulting Spend.

So, we're in the third episode of our 6 levers series. In this episode, we explain why their approaches are inadequate. What implications do they have on the optimization process, why aren't they working, and what should they focus on instead? How do human skills and collaboration take center stage in it all? This episode explains them all.

In this episode, we explain in detail how managing consulting spend creates value for organizations. Companies invest up to 3 % of their revenue in consulting projects but rarely do they manage this category. The lack of management makes it costly. On the other hand, companies could save at least 25 % of what they spend by focusing on optimizing ROI on consulting spend. This optimization process must involve procurement from the early stage of the project. Managing consulting spend from early on can lead to immense value for the company -- not in terms of monetary saving alone but also in terms of synergy, efficiency, and collaboration value. And that answers why organizations should optimize the ROI of their consulting spend.

Not optimizing consulting spend can be a costly problem for companies. Although some companies attempt at systematically managing consulting spends, the entire initiative may fall flat in the absence of a proper plan and strategy. Where do companies go wrong? How to do it right by utilizing the seven levers to optimize consulting spend? Where and how should you start? The 6-lever series presented by Consulting Quest gives you an opportunity to get all these questions answered, so that you can understand the consulting category better and take the most sensible steps to optimize your spend in this category. We have created this series with references to real-world problems with insights from real-world problem solvers. As always, consulting support can play the role of a differentiator for businesses, especially at a time of worst inflation and recession. Why not use it wisely? This series is aimed at facilitating just that. At the end of the series, you’ll emerge as a wise, educated, informed consulting buyer and user.

While the consulting sector has embraced digitalization in a big way, procurement remains a labor-intensive activity with lots of data and paperwork to handle. Digitalization can take the hassles out of the traditional procurement process. Today, there is a plethora of tools and technologies that can be leveraged to automate procurement processes and make them more efficient --SRMs, Negotiation & Decision, Contract Management, Procure-to-Pay, Financial Performance, procurement analytics, and more. Indeed, there cannot be a better time than this to start digitalizing procurement. Join Helene in this episode of the Smart Consulting Sourcing podcast to learn more about the digitalization of procurement.

Executives are generally averse to the idea of working with consultants. This reluctance primarily comes from two managerial mistakes: a negative perception of Consulting and inefficient Consulting Procurement capabilities. However, the management sometimes cannot just do without some expert help. Failing to avail of this support, it may miss out on many valuable insights and perspectives. So, onboarding management to work with consultants is the first step to ensuring the success of your consulting project. In this episode of our Smart Consulting Sourcing podcast, Helene tells you about the steps you can take to create an environment of collaboration between consultants and your executives.

It's true -- all types of business spending have a head and a tail. More often than not, tails are way bigger than heads. So, what makes up this huge part of your consulting spend? A series of fragmented, low-cost, one-time purchases. Individually, each purchase may not be that expensive, but when they add up over time, they become huge and can be a major drain on your bottom line. So, you must be thinking just getting rid of all the expenses in this bracket will help you control your spending. No, it's not that easy. Not all the expenses landing in the tail are unnecessary. Tail spend may include necessary purchases, non-strategic purchases, duplicate purchases, and some utterly unnecessary purchases.  So it's important to be able to differentiate them all. By identifying these items and categorizing them based on their priority, Companies can free up cash flow and use it to invest in more impactful projects. It all starts by analyzing your tail spend and understanding where this money is going. In this episode of our Smart Consulting Sourcing podcast, Helene tells you how to go about it. Don't miss it.  

From advising you on how to make your operations leaner and more efficient to helping you find ways how to adapt your business to the changes that are underway, consultants can benefit your organization and create value for it in multiferous ways.   But you cannot expect to reap the maximum advantage from the consulting support if you end up hiring a consultant based only on ranking and client feedback, whereas the qualification process should be tailored to your company's needs and ways of working.   In other words, what value consultants deliver to their clients and how they do that depends to a large extent on the area of their specialization. Hence, understanding what consultants do is the key to perceiving how they can create value for your organization.   In this episode of our Smart Consulting Sourcing podcast, along with our two distinguished guests -- Eli Peleg and George Hemingway -- we explore what consultants do and how they do their work with clients and procurement.  Eli is a senior partner at Programa, and George is the managing partner at Stratalis Consulting. Tune in for a great conversation.

When it comes to buying consultancy services, people tend to shortlist firms concerning their prestige, brand awareness, methodologies, and so on, and as expected,  MBB tops their desired list. However, it's not that only the top companies can really solve your issue. Sometimes, a local consulting firm with a sound knowledge of the local culture and economy often makes a better option for you. In this episode of the Smart Consulting Sourcing podcast, Helene brings your attention to some aspects beyond ranking that would help you find the right consultancy for your need -- not just the best ones.

Building up an organizational set-up that would make your consulting souring process more efficient is like laying the foundation of a house. Consulting sourcing is not like purchasing commodities; it calls for deep expertise, experience and extensive research.   In this episode of the Smart Consulting Sourcing podcast, Helene discusses five ways to build an organizational set-up for the ease of sourcing the right consultants! It does not matter how big your organization is, this podcast will help you approach this goal more strategically and confidently.