Search : consulting spend

When it comes to optimizing consulting spend, you're not just fine-tuning a few processes—you’re fundamentally shifting how your organization selects and manages consulting services. And let’s be honest, that kind of change often faces resistance, especially from the top. To succeed, you need everyone on board, from procurement to senior leadership.
 
At Consulting Quest, we rely on John Kotter’s 8 Steps for Leading Change, a proven framework to ensure smooth transitions and lasting success. Optimizing consulting spend touches every part of your organization, so getting buy-in, communicating clearly, and embedding new practices is essential. In this episode of Smart Consulting Sourcing Podcast, your host Helene will take you through how we use Kotter’s model to help organizations like yours get the most out of their consulting spend. Tune in!

Welcome to another episode of the Smart Consulting Sourcing podcast, where your favourite host, Helene, delves into the nitty-gritty of consulting sourcing, and today she's tackling a critical aspect, demand management.
Think of demand management as your trusted decision-making partner. It's there to ensure you're putting your resources where they truly count – on the projects that will drive tangible value for your organization. In simpler terms, it's about making smart choices with your consulting budget.
In this episode, Helene will explore why demand management is crucial for consulting procurement. She'll uncover how effective demand management can provide organizations with the foresight they need. Because having that foresight can be the difference between strategic success and playing catch-up with reactive damage control.
So, grab your headphones and tune in. Trust us, you won't want to miss this!

Believe it or not, some people don't think reducing their consulting spend is worthwhile. They already added the cost to their OPEX and say it's just a drop in the ocean - but what about the maximum impact that could be achieved?
We at Consulting Quest want businesses to truly understand the value of optimizing ROI from their projects - and through our 15-episode "6-Levers Series", we show you how. From why optimize, how to optimize, where you may go wrong and what are the benefits of optimization - we cover it all!
So this is our final episode of the series - a recap to everything you need to know about maximizing your consulting ROI. Get ready for some real gems of knowledge! And remember: Don't wait around - get optimizing now! We may be passionate about consulting ROI and helping anyone who needs it. So if, while on your journey, you feel a little lost, don't worry! Just give us a shout out, and we'll be happy to have a chat. Happy optimizing!!

Consulting procurement is a complicated and challenging process, especially if you're looking to optimize the return on your investment. Thankfully, there are tools and methodologies available that can help you effectively manage your consulting spend and maximize your ROI.
The Consulting Sourcing Toolbox is one such resource that offers a comprehensive collection of tools and strategies designed specifically for consulting procurement. The Toolbox includes various tools to help you optimize your consulting spend.
Combining the right tools and methodologies, the Consulting Sourcing Toolbox can help you make the most of your consulting budget and maximize your ROI. In this episode of our 6-Levers Series, Helene discusses all four categories of consulting sourcing tools. Tune in.

Everybody knows that when done correctly, consulting can have a major impact on a business. By now you know that our 6-Levers approach is intended to help consulting buyers make educated choices while buying consulting services.
Over the previous episodes, we explained the six levers in detail and how they can help to optimize the ROI of your consulting spend. And a major part of that ROI is related to the value and impact of consulting. You can say, these are the real benefits of using these six levers.
In this episode, Helene discusses the types of impacts you can expect from a successful consulting project. Simply put, by optimizing the ROI on consulting spend, a company can see improvement at all levels of work and this is one of the greatest impacts any company can achieve. Tune in to know about all these impacts in detail.

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.

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.
 

Spend analysis is all about turning your spending data into valuable insights. In consulting, the process helps you to examine your company's spending to find areas where you may save costs and improve the impact of your projects. Providing you with a fact-based picture ultimately helps you to decide whether your consulting investment was a wise decision or not.
What did you spend money on? What are the functions/business units buying Consulting Services? Who are the project sponsors? How many times a year? How much did they spend? What type of Consulting did they buy? Spend analysis helps you to comprehend all these issues, and this insight can be your weapon for rapid wins and value generation. So, how do implement the process? What are some of the levers to capture its benefits?
In this episode of the Smart Consulting Sourcing podcast, Helene explains it all. Do tune in.
  

Consulting is a vast discipline. Its very nature makes it difficult to generalize it completely. When it comes to consulting spends, just like other intangible service categories, there should be tight control in the decision-making for the sourcing process as well as for the procurement, which is supposed to facilitate the process and ensure compliance.
Collaboration between operational entities and procurement is essential to ensure positive impact and savings.