Management consulting is ... The concept, definition, types, directions and stages of development

Management consulting is a sure step of a business towards achievements and victories. Not a single significant decision, regardless of the size of the company, is implemented without expert advice, especially in the West. At the same time, the heads of such firms usually have extensive managerial experience and higher education. Despite this, a lot of money is spent on getting advice from a competent specialist. This is due to the desire to occupy high positions in the market and not lag behind competitors.

During the crisis, almost all owners and executives of companies think about how to reduce costs and minimize potential dangers, how to correctly allocate resources and set up internal business processes. These and other questions can be answered by independent experts focused on management consulting.

Concept

Management consulting is a service that performs a huge number of functions, including:

• development and improvement of managerial powers of company managers;
• establishing their cooperation;
• assessment of the company's profitability;
• developing opportunities for revenue growth and cost optimization;
• development and strengthening of the competitive advantages of the company and its product;
• increasing the number of regular customers.

The main principles of quality management consulting are the following qualities: literacy, specificity, consistency, creativity and productivity. Consulting services are regulated by the regulatory framework, which consists of a huge number of laws, including art. 8 and 74 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, Art. 128 and chap. 39 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, also the Law of the Russian Federation "On Protection of Consumer Rights".

Forms of organization of management consulting suggest the following options:

• application of scientific achievements;
• the study of innovative options that arise in the management of other companies, and the possibilities of their application.

Sometimes it is possible to interweave several areas of consulting at once, which gives maximum effect and effectiveness.

Management Consulting. Consultant as a profession

International markets can be characterized by the presence of harsh competition. That is why it is often necessary to update organizational structures, methods and management systems. At the same time, one must keep in mind the understanding that a wrong change can have fatal results for the company. The wrong decision can lead to the death of the business, and the old ideas of management and organizational methods will not allow it to develop.

To succeed, hazards must be minimized through the use of competent and professional advice. A trained and experienced consultant explores the practice of international companies. In this case, the emphasis is not only on successful companies, but also on losing players.

The management consultant has knowledge of modern methods of organizational design, management consulting methods for making operational and long-term strategic decisions. That is why in management consulting the techniques of psychology and economic science are intertwined. With the help of them, the specialist offers the company management an impartial look at the state of affairs of the company and talks about ways to increase the productivity of company management.

It’s important to keep in mind the fact that management consulting is not a one-time procedure. It implies long-term interaction and support for company management throughout the management transformation process.

In the domestic consulting market, the separation of professionals is similar to Western models. It implies the functioning of training, process and expert consultants. In any case, the object of consulting is the processes occurring in the business, and only the manager’s questions are solved, which are associated with finances, personnel and social difficulties in the organization. Expert consultants are top-level professionals whose qualifications are beyond doubt. Their advice is practically one hundred percent effective.

They are masters in many fields, and therefore offer extremely valuable techniques. Consultants are hired by managers in order to correctly create tactics, determine the goals and objectives of the company, the main directions of successful business development. This category often includes technology consultants, whose knowledge in the field of certain technological actions can increase the productivity and work of the company. Often, such consultants are top managers of well-known companies. They share knowledge on the organization of work of an administrative body.

Process specialists assist the company management in finding solutions to pressing problems. In other words, they give advice on the methods and methods of management consulting in solving various issues. Most of the consultants in the modern consulting market are process ones. They are interested in issues of managerial accounting, optimal financial management, development of advertising policy.

There are specialists in the consulting market who can cover the field of process and expert consulting. They have the knowledge and ability to set goals for certain departments of companies and make plans for their achievement.

Training consultants are not highly qualified. Usually these are teachers of higher educational institutions of financial departments. Their knowledge is purely theoretical. Extremely extensive in the consulting market are companies specializing in narrow topics. However, in this case, the company needs to attract additional analysts that are consistent with its strategic goals, operational management and the creation of an effective information system.

Targets and goals

During the years of the financial crisis in the economy, business owners and executives are faced with the task of expanding and flourishing businesses. Management consulting is a set of measures aimed at solving this difficulty. This service is aimed at increasing the company's productivity, as well as at identifying and eliminating the external and internal causes that hinder it.

In the framework of this goal, management consulting copes with the following tasks:

• an increase in the quality characteristics of work processes in the control apparatus;
• correlation of interests of the company and society in order to find common ground;
• development of new management methods;
• development of strategies and tactics for the upcoming business development.

Main customers

The object of the consultation is a person (a client of management consulting), or rather, an organization as a target form of combining an active labor resource. The object of management consulting coincides with the object of management. This means that the work of a specialist and the work of a manager as a representative of an organization are unidirectional, and in the process of management consulting between them a special form of labor interaction appears: partnership. This type of labor interaction is based on certain principles and on the division of labor between the subject and the representative of the object of management counseling in implementing tasks to improve management.

The nature of cooperation between the client of management consulting and the consultant in the labor process, their duties and rights, especially decision-making are reflected in one form or another of the organization of the division of labor - a certain model of managerial service delivery.

The choice of model depends on the following reasons:

• the specificity of the object (industry affiliation, size of the object, motivation for teamwork with a consultant and changes, qualifications and experience in personnel management);
• properties of the subject (professional and personal qualities, qualifications and experience of a management consultant);
• the nature of the difficulty and problem to be solved, expectations from the result of the interaction.

Basic Services

Consulting is relevant during an unstable situation in the economy of the state and the world as a whole. During the diverse international situation and the resulting fluctuations in oil prices and exchange rates, management consulting can help companies not waste their revenues and market positions. In addition, this service can be useful in situations of changing the vector of the company’s activity or when adjusting the tactical policy.

Such consulting is useful when a company plans to capture new customers or enter the market with a new product. In addition, this service can assist in solving the internal difficulties of management personnel, resolve conflicts between business owners and top managers.

The indicators that the company achieves through consulting can be divided into direct and indirect, quantitative and high-quality, which is reflected in the table below.

Management Consulting Services:

Main types

Today, there are two types of management consulting: design and process. They have their own individual properties, advantages and disadvantages. The advantages of this classification approach are that it is operational and specific (there is a request - there is a solution). Among the minuses, it is necessary to note the probable elimination of the consequences of the problems, but not their prerequisites, as well as the difficulty in implementing solutions without a pre-prepared platform on the part of the client.

Best of all, project consulting solves local one-time tasks. Providing advice on the type of process does not imply a turnkey solution.

The consultants help employees develop their own method for solving difficulties by using different methods, such as coaching. This type of consultation requires more time and enormous effort on the part of the client, his main drawback is the uncertainty of the outcome. Positive aspects: solving the deepest issues, easy adaptation of management methods in the company. This approach to consulting is ideal for solving systemic issues in crisis and transitional situations, as well as in situations where the source of the problem is hidden.

There are a certain number of types of management consulting:

• strategic consulting:
• study of local and global market;
• assessment of the company's position among competitors;
• building an effective business model;
• miscalculation of risk;
• advertising consulting;
• development of company development tactics;
• research of target groups of consumers and possibilities to manage it;
• consultations in the field of personnel management;
• formation of organizational culture;
• management development;
• distribution of responsibility and classification of decision-making schemes.

There are other systematizations of management consulting: multifunctional and professional approaches, recommendation and procedural types, and so on.

Possible directions

In any case, the main goal of management consulting is respected. It consists in increasing the productivity of the company.

Today, the following areas of management consulting are often found:

• improving the organizational structure of the company;
• the formation of a system of motivation and incentives for employees;
• creation of criteria for independent work of personnel and company management;
• coaching - finding solutions together with a client using a combination of training and consulting.

Organization of the process

The process of organizing management consulting consists of the following elements:

• Diagnostics of the company. This event allows you to assess the state in which the company is currently located, assess the possibilities of its development, innovative potential, identify important difficulties and problems that impede the development of the company, and also develop methods for overcoming them.
• Definition of the problem field of the company, its consideration and description. All difficulties hindering the true development of the business are grouped, studied and carefully considered with a view to the forthcoming development of a set of measures aimed at improving financial and economic characteristics.
• Formation of a company’s development strategy. Based on the identified and studied issues personally for each business, a list of measures is being developed that are aimed at implementing more efficient work of the company.

Process steps

The investigated process consists of several stages of management consulting:

• Organizational diagnostics is carried out, the task of which is to identify the main issues and shortcomings of the company. At this step, certain differences can be established in the views of the manager and the conclusions of an external specialist consultant. For example, a manager initially hired a consultant to change organizational structure. As a result of the study, it was found that the goals of the company, its tactics and strategies are inadequately stated.
• Further, the organization is modeled so that it does not have to change the type of enterprise management. This step is an intermediate one, since it does not solve all the difficulties existing in the organization and does not achieve the main goal - optimization of the management system.
• In the third stage, the consultant develops tips for resolving issues identified in the first step, but with changes in the organization of management. Usually, several projects are under development.
• The developed projects are checked for the existing model of the company, a detailed implementation plan is formed
• At the final stage, the consultant accompanies the implementation of the decisions made. This is especially important for Russian business, where it is typical not to implement even effective solutions because of their cardinality.

Management consulting

Further, it is advisable to consider the development of management consulting. The market for consulting services in the post-Soviet space is now obviously lagging behind the western one. However, the globalization of the world, the entry of Russian companies into the world market in terms of fierce competition forced managers to understand that good governance is among the highest values ​​of a company that wants to be profitable. To increase the quality of management, it is necessary to apply new information technologies, organizational structures and optimal decision-making methods.

Ways to sell services

Today there are a huge number of ways of management consulting. Especially popular is the method of SWOT analysis. In the process of implementing the procedures, consultants assess the state of affairs in the company, analyze its advantages and disadvantages. Then they find solutions to balance the work of the company.

There are also other methods of management consulting that are aimed at personnel: coaching, activation of creative thinking, testing. All these methods of working with the client’s staff allow us to unite the team, develop new professional abilities and identify problem areas of communication, as well as flaws in the organizational culture. Other collective management consulting techniques are also used: brainstorming methods, the Delphi method. In practice, the methods of neurolinguistic programming and organizational self-diagnosis are the least demanded.

Fundamentals of management and pedagogical counseling

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Conclusion

Management consulting is a special kind of professional work. It is aimed at providing services to the management of companies in the field of economics and management in the form of independent support and consultations. The basis of management consulting is a special type of activity that has certain elements and properties, determined by the mental nature of work. For a deeper understanding of management consulting as a profession, it is necessary to consider its specificity based on the characteristics of mental activity.