What is Business Consultancy?
Business consultancy takes different forms and focuses on different aspects, but all business consultancy shares one very clear goal: making a company more profitable and increasing its turnover. In close cooperation with the company CEO, the business consultant studies the company in depth. The knowledge and insights he gains, and the recommendations and business plan that he draws up and helps implement, increase profitability and more than justify the moderate financial outlay for his services.
Business consultant Yaron levy describes the process and explains what it involves.
A Few Words About How Business Consultancy Varies Among Companies
Both the length of the business consultancy process and the process itself can vary substantially among companies. According to the needs, goals and wishes of the company CEO, the consultancy can range from a brief series of one-on-one encounters (even a short process can produce significant results) to an extended period of time. Nor is the process itself standard. An emergency consultancy for a business in crisis differs from the more measured process with a company that is stagnating or reshuffling. The approach is different again for a business failing to reach its potential, and a prosperous company looking to leverage its success for growth. The needs of large companies diverge from those of small, as do those of startups from established business concerns. And the business advice appropriate for a kindergarten differs from that for a building contractor. With all the differences, however, there are aspects fundamental to every business concern — among them, pricing of products and services, and submission of a business plan to a bank or to investors.
How Does the Business Consultancy Process Work?
The first thing step in a business consultancy process is a thorough examination of the enterprise. The business consultant studies it at every level — its financial position and administration, its day-to-day management, its market and competitors, its marketing and sales, and more — seeking its visible and hidden strengths and assets, as well as its weaknesses and impediments.
This thoroughgoing review has several key purposes. First, the business consultant gets to know the company in depth. Second, it enables him to draw up for the client an objective, reliable, comprehensive and professional picture of the business. Third, it becomes the seedbed of conclusions, insights and recommendations. And, fourth, the knowledge its gathers informs the professional business plan to be constructed for the coming year(s).
Emphasizing Company Finances
During this research phase, heavy emphasis is placed on company finances. The business consultant reviews its pricing of products and services, pinpoints those which are less profitable and why, looks at jobs and salaries, production costs, agreements with suppliers and overheads on different components, as well as the company’s books, cash flow, loans and more. It is not uncommon for company CEOs to be unaware of key financial aspects, either because they lack facility for numbers or lack time. Where necessary, the business consultant constructs clear and comprehensible financial reports — profit-and-loss statements, cash-flow reports, assessments by project or product. Explained to the CEO at eye-level, they differ from the reports of company accountants, focusing instead on what is most relevant to business management, showing data in real time, and illuminating the company’s financial position. This not only serves the consultancy process, but the system thus established enables the company to continue overseeing its financial conduct in the long term.
What Else Does a Business Consultancy Process Involve?
Understandably, a business financial consultancy process is very wide-ranging. Assessing marketing and sales is one obvious plank, but the business consultant can take it very much further by examining the use of advertising channels and sales processes. Or the consultant may identify an appropriate business collaboration and help realize it by overcoming personal antipathies.
Building a Business Plan
The business consultant works hand-in-hand with the CEO. At the heart of this collaboration is creation of the business plan, a viable, realistic blueprint for the next one to two years. Rooted in data, the insights and the conclusions derived from the initial review of the company, it sets out clear goals, solutions to problems, and realistic and feasible ways of utilizing company strengths. It may, for example, target cost efficiency — renegotiating with suppliers, cutting jobs, outsourcing certain services, relocation, recycling, paying off loans, and more. Or it may propose changes in marketing and sales, repricing, rebranding, recruiting quality personnel, appealing to new audiences and so on. For each company, it is a clear, professional, detailed, multi-part road-map, that puts the business on the right track, maintains it over time, withstands market changes, and helps it advance steadily and confidently toward its stated goals.
The path toward these goals inevitably requires changes from the company, both small and large. The business consultant remains on hand to support business CEOs, as they step out of their comfort zone to implement the business plan. And, where wanted, the consultant remains on board, monitoring the plan’s outcome, comparing reality with expectation, answering questions, contributing to decision-making and, if necessary, tweaking the business plan.
Yaron levy
Telephone: 03-5377088 052-8309858
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