Smart Consulting Sourcing

When it comes to better managing your consulting, it is a part of your transformation journey, and we all know that transformations are notoriously difficult. Leaders must work on improving consulting sourcing maturity to take their transformation efforts up a notch.
It entails a lot of work - but if done correctly, it can bring huge advantages to the table, which include cost savings and cost avoidance benefits as well as many other intangible benefits.
And that constitutes our sixth and last Lever to optimize the ROI of your Consulting Spend: "Improving your Consulting Sourcing maturity."
In this episode of our 6-Levers series, Helene shares with you what organizations can do to achieve this maturity. Tune in.

We all know that consulting is a big business. In fact, it's a $250 billion industry. But what's not so well known is that a lot of companies are leaving money on the table by investing in the wrong projects, overpaying, or failing to capture the full potential of their projects.
Procurement is often sidelined in these situations, relegated to administrative tasks such as contract management, purchase orders, and payments. But procurement has more to bring to the table: performance measurement, spend management, relationship building, and risk assessments are key success factors for purchasing any goods and services, including consulting.
Procurement leaders can help make sure the suppliers meet or exceed the buyer's expectations in terms of quality, delivery, and cost. When done right, this can lead to significant savings for the company.
Our 6-levers podcast series aims to help clients do it right so that they can optimize the benefits of their consulting investment. We already have told you about the four levers, and the 5th lever is about partnering with your consulting suppliers. Tune in and learn how you can get the most out of your consulting projects

When optimizing the ROI of your consulting investment, the amount of money you invest in the project is not directly proportionate to the impact it creates.
If you want to maximize the value of your consulting investment, you have to invest wisely and not pour loads of cash into a project expecting results.  And that means investing in the right projects, setting up the right delivery model, securing the impact of your projects, and, yes, keeping your consulting costs under control.
How do you do that? How to identify the areas that can be the source of significant savings? In this episode of our 6 Levers series, Helene discusses how you can refocus your spend on the must-haves, work with existing resources in new ways, trim your budgets, anticipate your expenses and control your projects to keep them on track. Tune in.
 

In this episode of our 6-Levers podcast, Helene answers one of the top concerns of business leaders --" how can I secure the maximum impact from my consulting projects?"
Our answer is to start by investing wisely in the right areas. But what are those areas of opportunity, and how do you spot them?  It starts with working on the right projects and assembling the right project team.
 

Welcome to the second episode of our 6-levers series, where we show you how to maximize your consulting spend ROI.
In this episode, we discuss the second lever- the right delivery model selection. Starting with what we mean by the delivery model to discuss the options and how to leverage them effectively, this episode explains it all.
Watch this episode and every episode of this series; we promise, at the end of the series, you’ll emerge a wise, educated, informed consulting buyer and user.

Even though consulting is a $300 billion industry, some business entities still doubt the value-creation potential of consulting.  Some even consider availing of consulting services as a sign of weakness.
Contrarily, in some industries,  executives depend a lot on consultancies. The bottom line is that consulting can be an invaluable resource when used effectively. At the same time, we must acknowledge that not all projects are good candidates for consulting support.
To ensure maximum value from your consulting spend, you must first ensure that you're spending the right amount of money on the right projects and investing strategically. But making that decision is easier said than done.
Therefore investing in the right projects has to be your first lever as you strive to optimize your consulting ROI. 
This Smart Consulting Sourcing podcast episode tells you how to use this lever most effectively.

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.