What Is a Business Process Consultant?
Do you want to increase the value of your business? Are you interested in gaining more control over it? Or maybe, do you want to give yourself more options to either grow, let someone else run it, sell it, or simply take more time off? Then you might consider working with a business process consultant.
In this week's video, I respond to a blog post about business process consultants. I give my perspective on how they can help and considerations you should take before hiring one.
Business Process Resources
Tallyfy: https://tallyfy.com
Transcription
Hi it's Xavier Chang, Principal of XC Consulting.
Today, we're back with another episode of Xcel with Xavier.
Today I am responding to a blog post about business process consultants. In this blog post, they talk about what they are, what are the benefits of using them, and some of the alternatives of using a business process consultant.
Let's dive right in. This article is by this company named Tallyfy. I actually am a partner of Tallyfy. In the description below, I will leave my affiliate link. So if you are interested in checking them out, please have a look at that link. Tallyfy is this business process workflow software for companies with departments, large departments. The software allows you to create workflows and automated processes to make sure that everybody knows what their tasks are and when they're due. It’s a helpful tool for companies that struggle with that. In this blog post, they talk about what is a business process consultant.
I think they do a pretty good job. I just wanted to respond from my perspective: what is a business process consultant and what are the benefits?
In their post, they say, "a business process consultant is an external consultant who helps businesses by researching and analyzing the processes and systems that a business implements. Once this has been done, he or she will make recommendations to improve these processes and practices with an eye to improving overall efficiency."
Yeah, I think overall that’s quite accurate. The way I kind of approach things is really to think about the current state of where the business is at. So I don't immediately come in with a lens to improve processes. It's really about empathy and trying to understand what's going on in the business. What are some of the challenges, who are the players? Who are the different departments or employees involved in a process? It's really coming in with that understanding lens and not trying to improve things right away.
Here they talk about some of the areas for improvement would include bottlenecks, "where work piles up in one area, inefficient use of resources, and inefficient use of time."
Once again, I come in as a business process consultant and try to understand what the current state of affairs are. Naturally, the conversation will lead to, "okay, where can we shave off time?" "Where can we cut steps?" "Where does it make sense to have a different responsible party for this particular task?" These things definitely do come up, but from my perspective, I don't go in and try to fix where the bottlenecks are or try to identify inefficient uses of resources or inefficient uses of time.
One of the things they write in the blog posts is "the success of a business process consulting intervention will depend on the quality of the consultant."
This is very true. I think experience is important. So having a business background, also knowing something about technology and how businesses work; I think that's important. What I'd like to add to this is importance of quality of the inputs, and this could be existing documentation in the form of emails, PDFs, PowerPoints and more.
Whenever I do my work, I usually get upwards of a hundred different types of documents, so it's important to get quality inputs. Then I think it's also having access to the people that actually run the processes. So either if it's a manager or if it's somebody on the front-line but getting access to that person, being able to make sense of the existing documentation and having them walk you through the process. A lot of times what I find is that they might have existing documentation, but they don't actually do it like it's stated in the documentation and that's fine, but you need that context. Having those previous documents, documentation is helpful, but it doesn't give you the complete story. You need the context from the experts. So I would add that it's important to have a good consultant, but also having good quality requirements or inputs and then also having a good source to lean on, to ask additional questions.
Okay, benefits of using a business process consultant. “So one of the biggest benefits of using a business process consultant is that you get a fresh pair of eyes when we're in the thick of things, it can be difficult to spot inefficiencies that are painfully obvious to an outside observer."
Yeah, I think this is one of the biggest things that I bring is just that outside perspective, because exactly like they said, it's really hard to look at the bigger picture once you're in the weeds. So having that outside perspective is really helpful.
I think adding to that, that adds a lot of pressure on the business process consultant, because they need to ramp up very, very quickly and they need to understand the fundamentals of the business. I think when you're hiring a business process consultant, look for somebody that's curious, asking for more information, and asking good questions. I think that will prove if they are really trying to understand the business and be that fresh pair of eyes, if you will.
Okay now drawbacks of using a business process consultant. "Although getting an outsider's impressions can be valuable, the person may not obtain a deep enough understanding of what you do and why you chose to implement certain processes and the way you did."
Yes, this is absolutely true. I never claimed to be an expert in the fields or the industries that my clients come from. I try to stay away from things that are very specialized, highly technical. Things that you might need a degree for, right? It might be things in healthcare or other highly regulated industries that I might not necessarily want to weigh in on because I don't have those specialized skills, I don't have the background. Where I touch is, typically functions and departments that are universal, like sales, marketing, logistics, finance, and accounting. Those types of departments, I think are pretty uniform across the board. So having those specialized skills or that background knowledge, it's not really something that, I try to dive into. That's definitely true.
I would encourage whoever is looking for a business process consultant that they keep in mind if they want this consultant to be a kind of an all-around-er. If you are looking for somebody specialized, make sure that they have the credentials and they have the experience of doing whatever you need help with.
Okay, so I think the last one here is alternatives to using a business process consultant. "You or a trusted staff member could undertake the process of evaluating workflows, both on paper and at the coalface, you won't have the advantage of a fresh pair of eyes, but you will have the advantage of the preexisting knowledge of the company."
Yes, this is absolutely true. I love it when companies and employees are taking the time to document their processes, understand the workflows, really take a step back to try to understand what's going on. I think the biggest problem here is that companies, departments, employees don't have the time to do this. They are running the day to day operations and thinking about documentation and workflows is an afterthought, unless there's a big change or shift in the company, whether they're looking to sell the company or they're looking to bring on new employees, or an employee is leaving, that's usually the type of shifts or the type of milestones in a business when companies, departments, leaders think about documentation. So it comes down to time. It comes down to focus. I will say, that is the best alternative to having a business process consultant; do it internally, but it's finding the time to do that.
So yeah, those were a couple of things that I like to chime in on when hiring your next business process consultant. If you are thinking about hiring that business process consultant, take these considerations in mind when you make that decision. If you like this video, you thought this was helpful, please like it, subscribe to my channel, and tune in next week for the next episode. Thanks so much.
Thanks for watching another episode of Xcel with Xavier. I've got new episodes coming out every Thursday morning. Please, don't forget to like this video and subscribe to my channel to receive notifications of new content. Thanks again, and I hope to see you again, next time.