How to find the right consultant

Wrong consultants can cause a lot of annoyance and frustration: the requirements are gathered incorrectly or PowerPoints pile up without any implementation. Furthermore, consulting is also quite expensive.

On the other hand, companies can benefit from the right consultants. They bring fresh impulses from outside and ensure that internally lacking know-how is available.

So how do you find the right one? Someone who does not cause trouble but works to your advantage? To help you with the selection, we present the most important decision criteria.

Consider the following points

• Project experience – consultants should have executed successful projects in their area. This testifies to existing know-how and the correct project methodology.
• Companies with specialists and a broad network – ensure that projects can be delivered. In addition, problems with accessibility and delays due to illness or vacations are excluded.
• Team Player – the consultants must fit the existing team. Avoid lone wolves.
• Specialization – is it a decathlete or do the consultants have a razor-sharp profile? You are always better off with a specialist.
• Expertise – the company must have the necessary know-how. An own product testifies to expertise and successful project implementation.
• Reputation – is easily verifiable on the Internet. Is the company's website a dead page or are articles appearing regularly in the company's blog? Are reference projects mentioned? How many results are there on Google? Maybe there are reviews?
• Transparency – price model and related performance are transparent, realistic and understandable.
• Realistic – plausible assessment of project's feasibility or requirements. Those who are too enthusiastic probably do not have the necessary specific experience.
• Hypercare – good consultants provide support on Go-Live and are not leaving right away.

What is available on the market?

Now that we know which selection criteria are important, we can look at the consulting market from these aspects. In general, the market consists of three types of consultants: large consulting firms, small boutique consultancies and freelancers.

The large consulting firms often use offshore consultants to increase margins. The less tech-savvy colleagues are deployed locally. These should translate the customer requirements for the offshore developers and coordinate the development. This approach inevitably introduces misunderstandings known from the game "Chinese whispers". Therefore, the end result is often unsatisfactory.

Smaller boutique consultancies specialize in a few areas where they have deep expertise. The consultants usually have many years of experience and special expertise in their field. The development takes place onshore, i.e. on site at the customer. Short communication paths help to avoid misunderstandings.

Freelancers do not belong to any company but work independently. These are often former consultants from the consulting firms described above, who are self-employed. Usually these bring many years of experience with them. However, continued training outside the organized company structures can sometimes be neglected. It is also questionable whether these one-man armies are real team players. In addition, substitution in case of illness is problematic.

Get to know NextLytics

NextLytics is a boutique consultancy specializing in small to mid-size SAP BI and machine learning projects. We implement our projects in an agile and success-oriented way. If no suitable internal consultant is available, we activate our broad network of professional consultants. With the help of our own screening process, we find the right consultant for our client.

We always see ourselves as partners of our customers. The success of the customer is our ultimate goal. We integrate ourselves into an existing team and find the right balance between give and take. We are characterized by a cooperative style and remain by your side from the Requirements Gathering to the successful completion of the project.

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