Business consultant

Last updated

A business consultant (from Latin consultare, "to discuss") is a professional who provides professional or expert advice [1] or service in a particular area such as security (electronic or physical), management, accountancy, law, human resources, marketing (and public relations), financial control, engineering, science, digital transformation, exit planning or any of many other specialized fields.[ citation needed ]

Contents

A consultant is usually an expert or a professional in a specific field and has a wide area of knowledge in a specific subject. Consultants can save their clients time, increase revenue, and maintain resources. [2] The role of a consultant outside the medical sphere (where the term is used specifically for a grade of doctor) can fall under one of two general categories:

The overall impact of a consultant is that clients have access to deeper levels of expertise than would be feasible for them to retain in-house, and may purchase only as much service from the outside consultant as desired.

In the United Kingdom between 1992 and 2011, government funding provided via Business Link could be used to enable small businesses to access business consultancy services. [3]

Research

A large-scale survey of business consultancy assignments, reported in 2004, found that repeat business and referrals from third parties were key determinants of consultant appointments. [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Construction</span> Process of building or assembling a building or infrastructure

Construction is a general term meaning the art and science of forming objects, systems, or organizations. It comes from the Latin word constructio and Old French construction. To 'construct' is a verb: the act of building, and the noun is construction: how something is built or the nature of its structure.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Project manager</span> Professional in the field of project management

A project manager is a professional in the field of project management. Project managers have the responsibility of the planning, procurement and execution of a project, in any undertaking that has a defined scope, defined start and a defined finish; regardless of industry. Project managers are first point of contact for any issues or discrepancies arising from within the heads of various departments in an organization before the problem escalates to higher authorities, as project representative.

Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any how to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants for a number of reasons, including gaining external advice and accessing consultants' specialized expertise regarding concerns that call for additional oversight.

A dietitian, medical dietitian, or dietician is an expert in identifying and treating disease-related malnutrition and in conducting medical nutrition therapy, for example designing an enteral tube feeding regimen or mitigating the effects of cancer cachexia. Many dietitians work in hospitals and usually see specific patients where a nutritional assessment and intervention has been requested by a doctor or nurse, for example if a patient has lost their ability to swallow or requires artificial nutrition due to intestinal failure. Dietitians are regulated healthcare professionals licensed to assess, diagnose, and treat such problems. In the United Kingdom, dietitian is a 'protected title', meaning identifying yourself as a dietitian without appropriate education and registration is prohibited by law.

A consultant is a professional who provides advice or services in an area of specialization. Consulting services generally fall under the domain of professional services, as contingent work.

Engineering management is the application of engineering methods, tools, and techniques to business management systems. Engineering management is a career that brings together the technological problem-solving ability of engineering and the organizational, administrative, legal and planning abilities of management in order to oversee the operational performance of complex engineering-driven enterprises.

A consulting firm or simply consultancy is a professional service firm that provides expertise and specialised labour for a fee, through the use of consultants. Consulting firms may have one employee or thousands; they may consult in a broad range of domains, for example, management, engineering, and so on.

Environmental consulting is often a form of compliance consulting, in which the consultant ensures that the client maintains an appropriate measure of compliance with environmental regulations. Sustainable consulting is a specialized field that offers guidance and solutions for businesses seeking to operate in an environmentally responsible and sustainable way. The goal of sustainable consulting is to help organizations reduce their environmental impact while maintaining profitability and social responsibility. There are many types of environmental consultants, but the two main groups are those who enter the field from the industry side, and those who enter the field from the environmentalist side.

A value shop is an organization designed to solve customer or client problems, rather than creating value by producing output from an input of raw materials. The principles of value shops were first conceptualized by Thompson in 1967, and properly defined by Charles B. Stabell and Øystein D. Fjeldstad of the Norwegian School of Management in 1998, who also created the name.

The human resource consulting industry has emerged from management consulting and addresses human resource management tasks and decisions.

An adviser or advisor is normally a person with more and deeper knowledge in a specific area and usually also includes persons with cross-functional and multidisciplinary expertise. An adviser's role is that of a mentor or guide and differs categorically from that of a task-specific consultant. An adviser is typically part of the leadership, whereas consultants fulfill functional roles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Advice (opinion)</span> Relayed to another person, group or party often offered as a guide to action and/or conduct

Advice is a form of relating personal or institutional opinions, belief systems, values, recommendations or guidance about certain situations relayed in some context to another person, group or party. Advice is often offered as a guide to action and/or conduct. Put a little more simply, an advice message is advice about what might be thought, said, or otherwise done to address a problem, make a decision, or manage a situation.

Corporate services or business services are activities which combine or consolidate certain enterprise-wide needed support services, provided based on specialized knowledge, best practices, and technology to serve internal customers and business partners. The term corporate services providers (CSPs) is also used.

Consulting psychology is a specialty area of psychology that addresses such areas as assessment and interventions at the individual, group, and organizational levels. The Handbook of Organizational Consulting Psychology provides an overview of specific areas of study and application within the field. The major journal in the field is Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. Consulting psychologists typically work in business or non-profit organizations, in consulting firms or in private practice. Consulting psychologists are typically professionally licensed as psychologists.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Professional services network</span> Networks of independent firms that offer services to companies in an organized manner

Professional services networks are business networks of independent firms who come together to provide professional services to clients through an organized framework. They are notably found in law and accounting. Any profession that operates in one location, but has clients in multiple locations, may provide potential members for a professional network. This entry focuses on accounting, legal, multidisciplinary and specialty practice networks. According to statistics from 2010, members of these networks employ more than one million professionals and staff and have cumulative annual revenues that exceed $200 billion.

Third-party logistics is an organization's long term commitment of outsourcing its distribution services to third-party logistics businesses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Council of Management Consulting Institutes</span>

The International Council of Management Consulting Institutes (ICMCI) has since 1987 been the professional body worldwide for management consultants. ICMCI since 2013 is called CMC-Global.

Knowledge enterprise is a knowledge company. Variations of this name include knowledge-intensive company, organisation, or enterprise. However, the scope and origin of this terminology is unclear, according to D. Jemielniak. This term can be more readily defined by how much a company depends on knowledge, and how much that dependence plays a part in the company. There is no consensus on how dependent a company must be for it to be considered a knowledge company. However, there are some variations in knowledge companies, such as in the economy, in which there are two groups, one labor-intensive, and the other knowledge-intensive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ordre des Administrateurs Agréés du Québec</span>

The Ordre des administrateurs agréés du Québec (Adm.A.) is a professional Order mandated by the Government of Quebec (Canada) to regulate the practice of the "Administrateurs agréés".

Fractional work refers to a work arrangement where an individual provides specialized skills or management services to multiple organizations on a part-time or project basis. This work model has gained popularity in recent years due to the increasing demand for flexible and cost-effective solutions for businesses to access specific expertise.

References

  1. "Consultant | Define Consultant at Dictionary.com". Dictionary.reference.com. 2004-03-09. Retrieved 2014-07-20.
  2. Tordoir, Pieter P. (1995). The professional knowledge economy: the management and integration services in business organizations, p. 140.
  3. 1 2 Bennett, R. J. and Smith, C., The Selection and Control of Management Consultants by Small Business Clients, International Small Business Journal, 22(5), pp. 435-462, accessed on 18 July 2024

Further reading