The struggling U.S. economy is being buffeted by a host of unprecedented structural changes these days, but one of the most profound and lasting shifts is the increasing reliance on outsiders to add corporate value when it comes to both strategy and execution. Indeed, the consensus forecast estimates that nearly 35 percent of the total U.S. workforce will be comprised of contingent workers, consultants and independent contractors within a decade.
Companies are depending more and more on outsiders because of tight budgets. In terms of overall compensation – which includes salary, benefits, taxes, incentives and bonuses – plus training investment, it costs less to work with a medium- or high-level consultant from the outside than to add to permanent head count.
There’s also a pressing need to stay ultra-competitive in today’s relentless marketplace, so sometimes companies need to reach for outsiders to extend their bandwidth, add to their knowledge, or gain a new skill set – even for a limited period of time.
Many companies are recruiting outside consultants from the big professional services firms, on one end of the spectrum, and from smaller staffing companies on the other end. But we believe that there is a vast, new – and better – middle ground here. The reason? Because the big professional services firms tend to focus heavily on strategy, rather than execution; and the smaller staffing companies are generally less relationship-driven.
At Ombrella, we often partner with both the big professional services firms and the small staffing companies, providing consultants that add heft, pick up the slack, and handle strategies that need to be re-worked.
But, for the most part, we operate independently, and we occupy the very broad center of the market. That means we take on a wide variety of corporate consulting assignments involving strategy and execution in a diverse set of industries. It also means that our experienced consultants have to be self-motivated, self-reliant, and self-managed – as well as deliverable driven. And, finally, it means that our consultants absolutely have to achieve agreed-upon results between start dates and ending deadlines.
Attracting and retaining this kind of top-tier consulting talent is a real challenge, even in the uncertain economy we now confront. And, since the financial meltdown in 2008, we have consistently found that strong and seasoned outside consultants still command a fairly high salary. We attribute this firm pricing to strong demand, driven by the fact that companies across the board are striving to be more efficient and do more with less fixed overhead.
Right now, the most sought after outside consultants are those who have skills and experience in agile methodologies, process engineering, lean engineering, or just-in-time manufacturing. Business intelligence and analysis is another coveted discipline, because companies have a lot of historical data, but they don’t know how to use it to fix things going forward. Not surprisingly, each of these in-demand areas leads to greater enterprise efficiency.
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We’ve won over outside consultants with these backgrounds by clearly differentiating ourselves from the competition. In addition to offering strong compensation packages, our emphasis on building transparent, long-term and mutually beneficial relationships with the best and brightest outside consultants allows us to provide clients with a steady stream of platinum talent.
A key element in our relationships with outside consultants is open and honest two-way communication. Our consultants have the opportunity to discuss any and all issues face-to-face with our experienced executive team as they work through their assignments. And this always-available sounding board has been critical in achieving lasting success time after time for both our consultants and our clients.
We also try to focus on the needs of our outside consultants. Their career enhancement and enrichment is important to us, for example. So we try to make sure that each and every assignment stretches and stimulates them. We also try to work as exclusively as possible in the local Seattle-area economy, because we know our consultants value work-life balance, and flying through time zones to get to an assignment each week is hardly the best way to nurture a family.
Caring for clients in the same thoughtful way usually leads to durable business partnerships.
We engage in a serious up-front dialogue with the companies we serve, for instance. And these conversations generally give us a pretty good idea of what business problems the client is attempting to solve, as well as the specific type of consultant we need to provide to help meet the challenge. The right fit is everything. We never just push a bunch of ill-considered resumes into the client’s inbox; and, as we’ve said over and over, you can’t figure this out as you go along and expect to retain close bonds with consultants and clients. So, the bottom line is that we’d rather send nobody to a company instead of the wrong people.
Our job is becoming easier, however, thanks to the emergence and expansion of social networks, which assist us in finding and attracting the very best outside consultants. To be sure, getting a wonderfully qualified candidate referred to us by one of our teammates at Ombrella really helps us help our clients. And, looking ahead, as we gain greater sophistication using Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, I’m sure the social network recruiting tool will play an even greater role in this crucial process.
In the meantime, we can’t forget that this is a people-centric part of our business, and dealing with the human factors on both the client and consultant sides is central to facilitating relationships that work well for all parties.
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