Business Consulting: Impact of Skills, Practices, and Insights

This report examines the field of business consulting, focusing on the skills and practices essential for success. The author, a business consultant manager, reflects on their learning experiences, including insights gained from coursework, site visits, and interactions with colleagues. The report highlights the importance of analytical skills, communication abilities, and adaptability in providing strategic advice to clients. It also discusses the role of modern consultancy firms in diagnosing problems, collecting data, and implementing solutions. The author emphasizes the significance of ethical conduct, client confidentiality, and a commitment to long-term business solutions. The report concludes with a reflection on how these experiences have shaped the author's approach to business consulting and their plans for future career development, including refining skills through training and practical application.

Running head: BUSINESS CONSULTING
Business Consulting
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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BUSINESS CONSULTING
Business consultant is a professional or organisation who is contracted by business
organisations to advise them on strategies which contribute towards strengthening their core
business processes. Business consultancy firms help the organisations to address challenges to
their key business imperatives. These firms specialise and provide advices in crucial areas like
management, law, marketing, finance and data security (Consultant W. 2017). I as a manager
employed at a business consulting firm have the skills which help me to face the challenges my
profession throws before me. I update my skills and competencies as a business consultant
manager which would me to bring about growth in my career in the future.
I have learnt that business organisations use the advisory services of the business
consultancy firms to strengthen their core business processes which are imperative to successful
business execution. I have realised that a business consultant should have twelve attributes often
referred to as 12 As to become a successful business consultant. They are the right professional
attitude, the required aptitude, analytical power to analyse the problems facing the clients, the
power to align them with the business strategies of the clients, the power to argue using logic and
knowledge, access to the crucial data of the client related to the problem, choosing the right
approach, creating appropriate, accountability, knowledge about the key management people of
the client and the finally advice the client to solve the challenging situation(Abhimanyu, Bottiger
and Singh 2016). I have come know that the decision thinking concept have four elements
namely, start, scope, spin, specify and solve. As a business consultant manager I would be
required to act and deliver high quality strategic advices to clients under various systems like
scientific, structured and chaotic. I have further learnt that business organisations produce
products to earn supernormal profits whereas non profit organisations work towards achievement
of social welfare and sustainability (Lane 2015). Both the types of organisations require the

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advisory services to deal with their key business imperatives consisting of cash flow, strategies,
culture, growth, innovation and so on. Every organisation has to measure their power to mobilise
resources, staff efficiencies and business performances in the light of the business objectives set
by the apex management (Reimer 2016). The board of directors of both profitable and non
profitable organisations have to supervise the organisational performances, employee
performances and organisational capacities to ensure that the core objectives of the organisations
are strong enough. I have learnt that the strong organisational design ensures regular cash flows,
successful implementation of the business strategies and organisational culture aligned to the
organisational goals. These learning and realisations have impacted my practices and made
me realise the significance of the advisory services of consultancy firms. I have realised that
the need to achieve organisational excellence necessitate the apex management to hire the
business consultancy firms to strengthen the core business productivity (Bocken et al. 2014).
Business Consulting is a very crucial area of practice in the corporate organisations and
stand of several theories like Cultural Accomodation Model-Process Consulting(CAM-PC)
theory by Leong and Huang. Cultural Accomodation Model-Process Consulting states that
every individual has some unique attributes and some common attributes to other human beings.
They further state that if the consultancy services provided to individuals are not aligned to their
attributes, they do not gain from the consultancy advices (Leong, Huang and Mak 2014).
Schien’s Process Consulting Model states that the consultancy firms to adapt to their
consultancy processes to bring about innovation and deal with challenging situations. The
consultancy firms do not sell expertise but diagnose the problems of their corporate clients to
help them to integrate knowledge and resources to gain organisational expertise (Adler 2015).

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BUSINESS CONSULTING
I have realised that business consulting requires new skills which enable the consultants
provide their corporate clients with accurate advisory services. They are profound analytical
power, reliability, adaptability, initiative, strong knowledge in the areas of consultancy
(management, finance, law and so on) and resourceful. A consultant should have profound
knowledge and skills in the area of consultancy like law and management and have strong
communication skills to provide his clients with appropriate advices (Manley and Titchen 2017).
There are insights in the field of business consultancy which as professional I feel would
be very helpful in my career as a business consultant manager. Business consulting requires
scientific management and critical systems thinking about the resources of the client companies
(Forbes.com. 2017). This insight made me realise that as a consultant I can also follow the
scientific management theory of Taylor which emphasises on scientific management of the
resources of companies to achieve high productivity and profits (Turan 2015).
Modern business consulting today plays a very important role in assisting the
organisations achieve high performances in their core business areas and I feel that the service is
not restricted to advisory services. The modern consultancy services follow a detailed and
complex chain of processes like entering into contract with the client organisations, diagnosing
the problem, collection of data, feedback and implementation. I feel this detailed new practices
help the consultancy firms to provide their business clients with appropriate business solution. I
have also learnt from this finding that this ability to provide timely advisory services to the
organisations have made the consultancy very profitable (Lin and Wu 2014).
I have found during my new conversations with my class colleagues that they have learnt
new skills in consultancy which have challenged my thoughts as a manager on the subject and

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have changed it considerably. They course content have also have had considerably changed my
thinking and behaviour as a manager functioning in a consulting situation. I have realised events
like client meets and my first site visit can be very different and more enriching than attending
classes. These real life engagements give opportunities to me as a business consultant provide
me with valuable insights on modern consultancy industry (Briner and Walshe 2014). I came to
know about the modern consultancy firms use detailed methods like cloud computing and video
conferencing with the key managers in their client companies to gain indepth knowledge about
the problems they are facing to provide them with appropriate strategic advices. This new
learning from field and real life situations would be beneficial to my practices as a manager. I
can reflect that these new learnings have made me a more capable and expert business consultant
manager (Ranyard, Fildes and Hu 2015).
I can discover that the articles on consulting available on the internet are rich in
knowledge and provide me with new ideas about consultancy trends. Some of the articles
consultancy businesses are from business media sources and from international magazines like
Forbes which are very reliable and provide me with new ideas and views about my practice of
business consultancy services.
I can conclude that the new skills and competencies like analytical skills about
consultancies would help me to improve my career as an entry level business consultancy
manager. The newly developed analytical skills would help me to analyse the business related
problems of my clients to provide them with appropriate and long term solutions to the problems
pertaining to their core business objectives. I have developed new knowledge and capabilities
that would prove advantageous to my career of a business consultant. The newly acquired
capabilities are analytical skills, communication skills, use of modern communication channels

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like cloud computing and video conferencing. While reflecting upon the knowledge I have
gained from the class and the site visits, I feel the site visits have proved to be important sources
of gaining practical knowledge about consultancy business practices and their operations. While
giving examples of site visits I can recall a big consultancy firm I visited where I got an
opportunity to speak to the head of the business consulting department. It was a important
encounter because it provided me new insights about consultancy profession. I realised that a
successful business consultant professional is required to have certain special qualities other than
skills like analytical and communication skills. A consultant should be committed to provide his
consultant with long term business solution. His aim should be helping his business clients to
strengthen their core business competence. A business consultant in order to help his client often
gains access to confidential business data. A consultant should use the data ethically to help the
client firms and never share the data with outsider. He should gain prior approval of the senior
managers of the client companies before using the confidential data. He should always be
committed to his clients’ business strategies and preserve the confidentiality of those strategies. I
am planning to continue my profession as a business consultant at the big business consultancy
firm I visited. I would refine and improve my skills by training under the head of the business
consultancy firm. It would give me an opportunity to develop my skills more as an entry level
consultancy manager by working under his leadership.

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Adler, C., 2015. Information asymmetry in process consultation. Leadership and Organization
Development Journal, 36(2), pp.177-211.
Bocken, N.M.P., Short, S.W., Rana, P. and Evans, S., 2014. A literature and practice review to
develop sustainable business model archetypes. Journal of cleaner production, 65, pp.42-56.
Briner, R.B. and Walshe, N.D., 2014. From passively received wisdom to actively constructed
knowledge: Teaching systematic review skills as a foundation of evidence-based
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Consultant W. 2017. What is a Business Consultant?. [online] Business News Daily. Available
at: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4610-business-consultant.html [Accessed 17 Aug. 2017].
Forbes.com. 2017. Forbes Welcome. [online] Available at:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dailymuse/2013/11/05/be-the-best-consultant-ever-6-things-that-
will-make-you-great/2/#1385205450ee [Accessed 17 Aug. 2017].
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