Consultancy
Strategy and planning
Strategy and planning
Consultancy is paid advice from outside your organisation: a consultant analyses a question, advises on the approach and often helps with the execution too.
You hire a consultant for knowledge and experience you do not have in house, or for an outside view on something you are too close to yourself. Think of a strategic choice, a system selection, restructuring your marketing or setting up reporting.
Consultancy comes in three flavours. Advice: research, analysis and a recommendation you take forward yourself. Advice plus delivery: the consultant stays involved and helps execute. And filling a role: the consultant temporarily takes over a position, which is effectively interim work.
Good consultancy is measurable. Agree up front which question is on the table, which decision the advice should support, what must be in place at the end and who takes it over. Without those four points an engagement easily becomes a report nobody uses.
In practice
Hiring a consultant without an owner on your side. If nobody internally has the time and mandate to act on the advice, nothing changes.
Related terms
- InterimInterim means temporary: someone fills a role in your organisation for a defined period — during illness, parental leave, an open vacancy or a project that needs extra steering.
- Done for youDFY (done for you) means an agency or specialist executes the work while you review the results. The middle path is DWY (done with you): they set it up, you take it over.
- KPIA KPI is a number you steer on because it links directly to a goal, such as qualified enquiries per month or cost per customer.
- Business intelligenceBusiness intelligence (BI) is collecting, combining and visualising company data so you decide on numbers instead of gut feeling.