Sometimes, when companies are working on a difficult problem or a controversial project, it can be difficult for them to make decisions or take the necessary measures without being carried away by emotions or politics. Therefore, they hire consultants to give them an unbiased view and do some of the dirty work for them.
Business consultants
can help improve processes and performance, help with human resources strategy, help with operations support, and more. While expensive, it's a common job for operational consultancies (e.g., Deloitte and Accenture) and, to a lesser extent, for government consultancies (e.g., Strategy&).Common industries that hire business consultants include finance and accounting, advertising, human resources, education, nonprofit and human services, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, information technology, and others. Consultants usually specialize in a specific area, and those who are not independent contractors may work for larger consulting firms that contract their services. Education consultants work in the education industry to advise on a variety of issues related to early childhood, elementary, secondary, and higher education, or they can work in a wide range of industries to help organizations achieve their educational goals. By hiring an external consultant to manage your project, they can focus on creating and testing the new process or system without interrupting the daily responsibilities of the internal team.
Because of this, many companies and organizations struggle with the decision to hire a consultant or not. A former McKinsey partner put it best when he called business consultants “masters at reinventing the wheel.” There are also many smaller firms that hire consultants with specialties such as operations, finance, IT, business strategy, social media, and sales and marketing. An IT consultant provides technical guidance to clients by detecting and analyzing security threats, analyzing code, improving system efficiency, and generally helping a company to better use IT to meet its objectives.
