Business and Law. Features of the national market for consulting services
Today, in the face of fierce competition and a decrease in consumer demand, the market situation is prompting enterprises to look more and more actively for effective management methods, and nowadays, without the participation of information technology, this is already achieved with difficulty.
Classical consulting of slow alignment of procedures, business processes, information flows, which was typical for the market ten to twenty years ago, without the support of information systems, rules for working with information, practically does not work anymore. The growing market demand for comprehensive, integrated services has led to a process of bringing together “classical” and IT consultants. As a result, the client receives consolidated responsibility for the result of the work. If a coherent project is divided between a number of performers, the area of responsibility for its result is seriously eroded.
The most difficult stage of a consulting project is the implementation of developed recommendations, during which it often turns out that without an information system, it is practically impossible to implement the recommendations. Any company manager feels more confident if he knows for sure that from the beginning to the end his project is led by professionals qualified for each of the project stages, that there will be no gap between the stages associated with the transfer of the project to other hands. In the conditions of “opacity” of the market, it is easier, more profitable and more efficient for the customer to build a strategy for working with one performer, giving the company the opportunity to implement the project in a comprehensive manner, and, therefore, the widest area of responsibility. As a result of such a partnership, the customer can demand maximum quality and efficiency from the contractor and control the work at any stage of the project implementation.
To solve the problem of managing a client’s company, especially during the restructuring period, there is a need to involve financial analysts, appraisers, lawyers, auditors and system integrators who play a crucial role in justifying the decision on the need and amount of consulting services, predicting the impact of their results on management decisions on the project as a whole. In such cases, the client is more convenient and more profitable to attract a single performer. Consulting and audit firms diversify their activities to provide comprehensive solutions to customer problems. The need to diversify the activities of consulting companies, among other things, is related to market requirements for the quality of work performed. Consultants need to be competent in many areas, even when performing specialized projects, say, in the field of personnel management or financial design. The degree of influence of external factors on the activities of consulting companies is quite high. However, the consulting market in its classical interpretation is potentially insured against strong fluctuations. A change in the stages of economic recovery and recession, as a rule, only forces large consulting companies to redistribute the emphasis within the framework of the package of services provided by them. Thus, under favorable macroeconomic conditions, the introduction of information technologies, strategic planning and development of personnel management systems are becoming topical. During periods of economic recession, services in the field of crisis management, cost reduction and restructuring of a portfolio of investment projects are most in demand.
Thus, the presence in the package of a consulting company of a wide range of services and the ability to catch trends in time make it resistant to the influence of external conditions.
