Invest
in Procurement and Employee Training Not High Priced Consultants
Dr.
Tom DePaoli
Why do organizations continue to use high priced
consultants and consulting firms instead of their own talented employees?
Before I answer this, I must confess that I am an experienced consultant having
worked for both small and large consulting firms.
One of the reasons for using consultants is that
companies are spending less and less on employee training and development.
Another is that they have a “bare-bones” staff, leaving no breathing room for
move-the-business-ahead projects. Investing in people is just not in vogue
anymore. Collaboration and team building
are favored but employees need the skills, training, and tools, both hard and
soft, to excel, not one day zip-lining exercises. Many companies are
one-trick-ponies. When a financial or other crisis occurs they first cut
people. If it gets worse they then cut more people. This is the exact wrong
approach to building employee trust in management.
The tragedy of this is that there are many talented
people within a company who could do the same work and projects that expensive
consultants are hired to do. They understand the culture better and how things
are accomplished in the company. They would be perfect for process improvement
and new initiatives. There are some exceptions, like new software or apps. The
approach here should be to develop internal employees to become trainers and
maintainers of the software with a high degree of independence from the
original software installer-supplier.
Often consultants are brought in to settle office
politics or political disputes. One department wants the business run one way
and another department wants it run differently. A consultant is brought in to
sort of arbitrate and present a solution that will be agreed upon. An
experienced consultant knows that the department head or vice president who is
paying for their hours expects the recommendations to meet their needs and
wants, not their political rival’s. Therefore, the person who is paying for the
consultant gets their “right” answers. When consultants leave, the losing party
or department often tries to sabotage or resist the consultant’s solutions.
Consultants are just doing their job. They want more
billable hours. The company’s culture is often at fault. There are many
employee empowerment plans and development approaches that can create empowered
and gifted employees who can run important projects. One of them is pay-for-skill or
knowledge compensation. It is a methodology devoted to continuous learning.
It is very close to running a university or technical school within the
company.
Process improvement is another area that can be
effectively run by employees. Lean, Lean-Six-Sigma, and six sigma have been successfully
led by internal employees. These
methodologies are
not as difficult as they are marketed to be.
A consultant may be needed briefly for initial
training, but long term process improvement should be run by the employees. Insist
upon the train-the-trainer model so your own people can run future training for
other employees. Kaizens
are a good straightforward area to start and a green belt level employee can
lead a kaizen effectively.
Here is a story from my experience: I once
interviewed for a procurement vice-president position. The interviewing company
had a major consulting group do a costly spend analysis and make
recommendations to transform or reengineer procurement to supply management. The
price tag was $50,000. The consulting group left a well-organized professional
three ring binder of their recommendations. The binder sat in a bookcase gathering
dust for six months with no action taken.
At my current company, the procurement professionals
just read the literature and investigated best practices. We trained
procurement personnel to execute the transformation and were well on our way to
saving millions of dollars. We self-designed and launched a 200-hour
professional training course submitted for CEC credit. In the interview, I
mentioned what we were currently doing and the progress that we were making with
zero consultant involvement. The steps we were taking were, in fact, very
similar to the recommendations of the high priced consultants. My team just
self-researched and executed the transformation. We were internally managing
the transformation and training our own people to execute it. I was offered the
job, accepted, and eventually read the consultant’s report. But first I
insisted that the current company employees would run the purchasing
transformation without outside consultants or interference. All of the steps
and the recommendations from the consultants could have been figured out by the
company’s current procurement professionals with a good procurement leader leading
and inspiring the transformation.
Consultants do have value and a purpose. Companies
should always examine the internal option first and use the talents of their
own employees to improve the business. Investing in employee training is the
best short and long term way to stay ahead of the competition.
Biography of Author
Dr. Tom DePaoli, (Dr. Tom) is
currently an independent management consultant, the Principal of Apollo
Solutions, which does general business consulting in the human resources,
supply chain and lean six sigma areas. His organization was self-founded in
1995. He retired as a Captain from the Navy Reserve. In other civilian careers,
he was a supply chain and human resources executive with corporate purchasing
turnaround experience and lean six sigma deployments. He has worked for over
ten major companies and consulted for over fifty organizations throughout his
career. Some of his consulting projects include: information systems projects,
re-engineering organizations, transformation, e-procurement, e-commerce, change
management, global sourcing and negotiating. His industry experience is in the
chemical, paper, pharmaceutical, IT, automotive, government, consumer,
equipment, services and consulting industries. He has been published
extensively in journals, magazines and books. He is the author of eleven books
all available on Amazon. He has
instructed at six education facilities in numerous roles. He is active in supporting the YMCA, Wounded
Warrior, and the prevention of the bullying of children.
https://www.amazon.com/author/tomdepaoli = Dr. Tom’s Amazon author’s page
http://www.apollosolutions.us = website of Apollo Solutions his business
drtombooks.com = more
information on Dr. Tom’s books
Contact Dr. Tom = thomasdepaoli@yahoo.com drtombooks.com for newsletter sign up https://drtombooks.com/contact/ My Books link: https://www.amazon.com/Tom-DePaoli/e/B003XSV1IQ
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