What keep consulting going and consultants on their toes...

Well this is my first post on this blog...the earlier ones have been photos or my paintings...Thanks to all who have appreciated my work and also to all who will do it in the future as I try to get better at it....

To give a background of this post I am a consultant in a very big consulting company who ...well consults...

Coming to the question up for discussion, I was talking to one of my fellow clients over a tea break...as we are quite good and frank to each other he jokingly commented...." you consultants will be here forever...will you ever leave"...I brushed it off saying..."well whatever we do makes life easier for someone"..but this question lingered on for quite a few days..."What keeps consulting going and consultants on their toes"...to be very very frank and proud about it ...consultants are selfless devoted people who put their work in front of everything else...who are ready to clean up someone else's mess...so the question that consultant just cook up work for them is ruled out...


Then today morning like a bolt from the sky I got the "eureka" feeling that Archimedies must have got when he had discovered the buoyancy force (I know it went above some people but I cant help it!...search wikipedia for Eureka_(word))

I had an answer!!...and a simple one...I like to call it "Circle of consulting"
Its Generalisation -> Standardisation -> Optimisation -> Globalisation -> Generalisation...and it goes on...


To explain it further...why do consultants come in in the first place, its because the client cant figure out what’s wrong with his big big complex business. The consultant comes in and "generalizes things" and groups up chaos and vision into manageable list of issues, risks and work plans....once the problems are identified its time to "standardize" ... making the business more manageable by 'aligning' related tasks and making sure everybody who is doing the same job does it the same standard way so that there is more visibility on the work…better collaboration...and its just becomes easier to manage..

Now this is where I found the missing link...

If the client has an easy business to manage its but natural that there is an urge to grow (...make more money in plain terms...)...Hence the wish to "optimize" the business to make sure that all costs are reduced and all profits are maximized…and once the business is functioning "ideally"...the client start to grow it…I used globalisation as 1. It sounds cool and like a consultant lingo... 2. People get "Bangalored"... (work gets outsourced)...

And then the final piece of the puzzle...once the client grows…he complicated the business...reaches a point where he cant figure out what is happening and then ends up pressing...911...and walla!!! ….the consultants are back to help the client generalise->standardise->optimise -> globalise -> and this will just keep going till the urge to "grow" is around...

So my dear client friend...we will be around even longer than you :))


For all readers…if you have reached this line and have not left the post half way…this idea is open to discussion...do submit you views…