Consultants are people who opt to share their knowledge and experience with a business to improve their performance, solve problems and innovate new thinking. There is a huge need for consultants in the market right now, as they are cheaper than full-time employees and offer a new perspective on a problem that might lead to its solution. But consulting is equally as challenging as it is rewarding. One of the best parts of this field is its diversity as many different types of consulting exist, each more suited for a particular type of business. Let’s look at some of these consulting types that exist.
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Strategy Consulting
This kind of consulting deals with the long-term vision of the company. Consultants focus and assist in seeing the bigger picture and thereby identify ways to make the business more competitive and profitable in the market. They come up with strategies that help reach long-term goals and even oversee its implementation and make sure that they are cost-effective and efficient.
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Operation Consulting
Operation consultants help clients reach their goals by overseeing their systems. They assess all levels of the clients operation including sales, production and customer service to make it as efficient as possible. They are more interested in making processes as refined as possible to save the maximum amount of money and time.
Operation consulting and strategy consulting are closely linked. While strategy consultants focus on achieving long-term goals, operation consultants make it so that these goals can be achieved. Due to this, many firms offer both these services.
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Financial Consulting
As the name implies it has to do with money. Financial consultants look at a client’s assets and finances and put forward a plan so that the client can better manage finance of the business. This may involve a variety of things like investment strategies, taxes and everyday expenditure of running the business. It also includes advice on insurance and savings strategies.
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Human Resource Consulting (HR.)
HR. consultants deal with the employees of a client. They help the company during recruitment and transitions by selecting people most suited for certain positions. They are responsible for employee welfare and attend to their issues. They are also responsible when there is a change in management and also take care of remuneration. They need to be very familiar with company culture and know whether two companies can work together if merged. Finally, they are also responsible for outsourcing.
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Information Technology Consulting (IT)
This type of consultancy mainly focuses on how to better utilise technology to enhance a client’s business. This could mean building custom software for the client specific to the business’s use case or a companywide updating of the technology being used (like upgrading computers) or even testing efficiency of existing technology to better implement it.