WHAT DOES A BUSINESS CONSULTANT DO?
The Business Consultant develops performance metrics to gauge process success and reviews data post-implementation for assessing impacts and outcomes. Through a deep understanding of process architecture, the role involves designing and mapping processes using established methods, enhancing the effectiveness of operations. Engaging closely with leadership and stakeholders, the consultant ensures alignment of process improvement initiatives with broader business objectives, leveraging detailed data analysis and research to drive decisions.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Business Consultant
1. Business Consultant Duties
- Client Management: Manage implementation of multiple clients at once.
- Project Planning: Prepare and maintain project plans and client-facing communications.
- Scheduling: Manage project timelines, schedules, agendas, and training plans.
- Liaison: Serve as the primary liaison between the company and client.
- Feedback Management: Convey customer feedback to product development staff.
- Product Expertise: Possess thorough knowledge of the company’s products used by customers.
- Training Development: Develop and deliver hands-on training and documentation for clients.
- Resource Coordination: Engage the appropriate internal skills/resources to complete client projects.
- Image Promotion: Promote and maintain a high-quality, professional, service-oriented company image among users.
- Requirements Analysis: Analyze impact, gather requirements, and conduct user acceptance testing.
2. Business Consultant Details
- Strategy Formulation: Contribute to strategy formulation and help realize client objectives within timelines and budgets.
- Project Ownership: Own project plans, managing both up and down within the team.
- Client Delivery: Deliver key deliverables to enhance client outcomes.
- Network Engagement: Identify industry influencers, participate in industry events, and tap into the network.
- Market Intelligence: Understand competitive positioning and contribute to market intelligence gathering.
- Material Creation: Create and contribute to the creation of materials for all client needs.
- Market Analysis: Gain a clear understanding of market trends, opportunities, and constraints to drive value for clients.
- Business Development Support: Support the development of new business proposals and pitches, and deepen value with existing clients.
- Sector Acclimation: Quickly get up to speed on new client sectors, stay abreast of relevant news and trends, and tap into the network.
- Presentation Craftsmanship: Craft flawless presentations and storylines, both internally and with clients, leveraging the team’s insights and analysis.
3. Franchisee Business Consultant Responsibilities
- Operational Guidance: Provide guidance to franchise personnel in all facets of restaurant functions.
- Financial Management: Generate revenue, control costs, and oversee marketing, purchasing, and human resources development/support.
- Brand Protection: Protect the Brand by supporting all quality systems of the company, including Compliance Audits, Ecosure, and various training programs.
- Franchise Assistance: Assist in the opening of franchisee's restaurants from plan review through grand opening, from an advisory and team implementation perspective.
- Best Practices Sharing: Recognize and share best practice procedures and ideas throughout the Famous Dave's system.
- Business Development Assistance: Assist franchisee in growing the business by sharing development recommendations, seeking development opportunities, and reviewing economic models.
- Stakeholder Communication: Maintain regular communication and meetings with the Director of Famous Dave's on job-related activities and developments.
- Compliance Management: Submit Compliance Audits as they apply and focus on key issues that affect the financial health of the franchisee.
- Relationship Management: Manage personal working relationships with franchisees while remaining committed to the Famous Brand and corporate objectives.
4. Business Consultant Job Summary
- Validation Strategy: Define functional validation strategy.
- Requirements Analysis: Gather and analyze expressed requirements.
- Specification Writing: Write functional specifications and liaise with MOE.
- Test Planning: Define, document, and write the acceptance test plan.
- Change Management: Manage change, train, and track execution of tests.
- Employee Engagement: Lead employee engagement sessions including workshops, interviews, and ongoing dialogue.
- Research & Analysis: Conduct research, strategic data, and policy analysis to support potential new housing programs and ways of working.
- Partner Engagement: Lead external partner agency engagement to build external understanding of Calgary Housing’s transformation program.
- Customer Engagement: Lead external tenant/applicant engagement, ensuring that customers are engaged in the process of transformation.
- Insight Analysis: Distill and analyze findings from engagement and use this insight to make recommendations to support an overall transformation program.
5. Business Consultant Accountabilities
- Customer Identification: Identify potential customers and introduce them to HWD.
- Client Relationship Management: Maintain contacts with clients to monitor their satisfaction with HWD.
- Contract Preparation: Prepare and submit pricing contracts to clients.
- Sales Follow-Up: Follow up with clients to identify opportunities to increase sales volume and profitability.
- Problem Resolution: Resolve problems with clients regarding manufacturing or delivery issues.
- Educational Support: Work with a clinical team to promote HWD educational activities in the hospital.
- Product Knowledge: Maintain a high level of knowledge about ZOLL Medical and HWD.
- Relationship Building: Establish and maintain close relationships with new clients and existing accounts for HWD.
- Reporting: Prepare a monthly report summarizing sales results, contacts made, product change needs, and suggestions for procedural improvements.
- Coordination: Coordinate with marketing and customer service staff to ensure timely shipment of the correct products to customers.
6. Business Consultant Functions
- FP Participation: Participate in RFPs by gathering stakeholder inputs.
- Deadline Management: Set and meet defined deadlines on projects with clients.
- Solution Development: Gather inputs, conduct solutioning, and collaborate with the Tech Team.
- Feedback Responsiveness: Proactively seek and act on feedback regarding performance and deliverables.
- Client Interaction: Interact professionally and timely with clients via email, phone, and in-person.
- Team Communication: Communicate appropriately and timely with all relevant team members.
- Knowledge Building: Contribute to the building of Business Consulting team knowledge, capital, tools, and templates.
- Billing Management: Maintain open and honest billing discussions with clients while maintaining appropriate realization of firm services.
- Market Analysis: Analyze and generate relevant market insights into payment trends and innovation across the globe, especially related to central infrastructure.
- Value Creation: Support in solutioning processes together with the rest of the team, to create value for nations and markets.
- Thought Leadership: Actively produce thought leadership collateral and participate in relevant market-facing conferences, forums, etc.
7. Business Consultant Overview
- Metric Development: Develop performance metrics to establish process success.
- Outcome Analysis: Reviews data post-implementation to measure outcomes and impacts.
- Impact Minimization: May develop recommendations to minimize impacts.
- Solution Recommendation: Makes recommendations on appropriate solutions based on research.
- Process Architecture: Designs and maps processes using defined methods.
- Change Management Participation: Participates in change management activities associated with process improvement.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Engages leadership and stakeholders to obtain support and buy-in for changes.
- Strategic Partnership: Partners with management, project champions, and process owners to align process improvement initiatives with business objectives.
- Data Analysis: Identifies data sources, gathers, and analyzes data relevant to processes identified for process improvement initiatives.
- Research: May research and summarize best practice standards relevant to process management in medical billing and coding review.
8. Business Consultant Tasks
- Action Plan Definition: Define the action plans to carry them out.
- Process Mapping: Raise and document general business process maps.
- Stakeholder Interviews: Interview stakeholders and process owners to define processes.
- Metrics Definition: Define the KPIs as well as the efficiency metrics and controls to be carried out in each one.
- Process Optimization: Analyze, diagnose, and propose improvement and optimization solutions to transform processes.
- Impact Analysis: Analyze impacts at the organizational level, like business cases, identifying costs and benefits.
- Role Definition: Define the functions and responsibilities of the different organizational structures of the entity, matrices, and roles.
- Mapping Oversight: Ensure process mapping is complete, provide feedback, and guide less senior analysts/consultants.
- Recommendation Preparation: Prepare process recommendation documents, including presentations, process maps, and supporting metrics.
9. Business Consultant Roles
- Progress Reporting: Consolidate channel activities into executive-level progress/results reporting.
- Team Planning Management: Manage and drive TAN leadership team periodic planning content.
- Strategic Initiative Management: Plan and manage the execution of all TAN’s strategic initiatives and key processes.
- Transformational Leadership: Lead the implementation of transformational, diverse, and complex business initiatives across TAN.
- Change Leadership: Act as a champion and change agent in leading the organizational changes required within TAN to create and sustain its capabilities.
- Strategic Leadership: Provide strategic leadership and ensure the successful alignment of complex goals and objectives.
- Consultation: Provide ongoing consultation to TAN’s leadership team regarding alignment, identification, and prioritization of business initiatives for mid to long-term strategy.
- Performance Monitoring: Lead the development, review, and ongoing production of a scorecard to monitor identified performance indicators.
- Meeting Management: Manage and drive the content of leadership meetings to create and evaluate execution on strategic plans.
- Influential Decision-Making: Influence and drive decision-making among peers, contractors, and leaders, including direct and indirect reports of the VP, TAN.
10. Business Consultant Additional Details
- Issue Trigger Identification: Identify and refine triggers for unplanned availability issues.
- SLA Compliance Analysis: Analyze downstream application compliance with SLAs.
- Impact Socialization: Identify, understand, and socialize the organizational impact of strategic initiatives.
- Change Leadership: Lead change/communication cycles in alignment with change discipline.
- Impact Awareness: Ensure awareness of the short-term impact and long-term value changes may cause through personal influence and successful communication.
- Relationship Building: Establish and maintain solid business relationships across the organization, including front line managers to senior executives.
- Matrix Leadership: Indirectly lead matrixed resources, coaching, mentoring, and developing colleagues in alignment with Leadership Competencies.
- Performance Management: Manage performance for a portfolio of products by proactively analyzing trends and troubleshooting issues.
- Target Setting: Use data and tools to define availability and response time targets in collaboration with other teams, and ensure products perform to targets.
- Root Cause Analysis: Conduct root cause analysis of identified issues, and partner with technology teams to implement solutions.