Part Two
Before, I begin the part two I would provide a gist of the
major concerns that revolves around packaging a consulting solution
- Packaged solutions have to appeal to large target audience to justify its presence in the solution line-up
- Consulting solution are highly differentiated to suit a very specific requirement adding severe challenges to articulate the package
- Customers have an idea of expectations and any change to that will mean either loosing relevance or necessitate the need to set the expectations
- Smaller consulting companies have to struggle with varying opportunities or sometimes the lack of it and hence, solution line never attains a critical mass
Truth is that there is no one answer to whether one can
package and sell consulting solutions like a product. It can vary from companies in terms
of what they would like to focus on depending on their perceived strength.
Market acceptance is difficult but not negligible as packaged consulting brands are yet to appear and customers still evaluate the same kind of firms for any
deployment, more specifically on the same grounds. There is a potential for a
branded packaged consulting solution and this opportunity has not been tapped
into as yet. Though I must admit that multiple rapid deployment solution are
one kind of packaged solutions that are being offered today. Though most stake
holders who know about the RDS schemes will admit that such packages are
oriented either to sell a specific tool set or used as an entry point. The value is
mostly around the price point and scope of deployment is highly skimmed to keep
the engagement short. This sort of packaging is a very limited as price and
timeline advantages have a very short duration and most importantly, they haven’t
seen to overcome the business challenges.
The packaged solution idea that I am going to bring about
will have the following attribute;
- It should solve key business challenges. For eg, increase the agility of supply chain via a demand management solution or a speed of procurement
- Whatever be the target audience, but it can tailored to effectively fit into the customer’s landscape. Each company is different and their existing processes have evolved with that company, so the new solution should not alter the evolution process
- Business application deployment approach should take the above two points as key influencers. This mapping has to be built in.
- The solution should have a post deployment services component which should ideally serve three areas
a.
Achieve the planned objectives are maximize the
return on investment
b.
Change management with incentive driven adoption
techniques
c.
Monitoring of the deployed solution life cycle.
Customer trust is the biggest asset of a packaged solution.
It is also interesting to note that a packaged solution is of higher relevance to a smaller consulting firm but it is easier for a large firm
to come up with. For the smaller firms, it
can provide them with a key differentiator and help them ride on its brand
value.
My first take would be to invest in a platform solution and
then derive offshoots from it to create market level solutions. One popular
success story came from this firm with a fruit’s name which gave us this
sensational phone that we all either love or love to hate. Ask anyone who used
their OS earlier in those awesome machines, or music software, would point that
all these were there much before the phone itself. The phone on its own is an
innovation of the platform consisting of the device and its ecosystem. One of
its major competitors has been banking just on the ecosystem and has created a
sufficient pull for product companies to leverage this ecosystem. Investment in
a platform also helps in minimizing the risk as one can test small and quickly
adapt to something that can sell.
Now, for conceiving such a solution the central idea should
be to revolve around creation of a brand which will come by answering what
business goals the solution will serve. Start at the strategic level because
those demands have been fairly well articulated. Firms have to be very
realistic in defining this part because it is the promise it intends to make
while selling it and has to live up to it without a choice. The second critical
component will be to marry it with the platform (not necessarily just the tool
but entire ecosystem consisting of the processes, applications, probable
customer landscape, etc.) Here the idea is to detail out the consulting
requirements with respect to the process changes, application integration
readiness, change management, all linking to the business goals. This is the
investment that firms will have to make with risks in mind. It will require
great intelligence creation, process detailing, technical superiority and
advanced testing including study of scenarios of what can go wrong. Smart firms
will be able to do this with lesser efforts but with stronger fundamentals.
Bear in mind that too much dependency on systems and
application will be risks not worth taking. Tools are just enablers which has
to be deployed in any case, so an expertise around the deployment can only
serve as a critical component but not the heart of the service delivery. In
fact tools which are complex to deploy can also be complex to maintain. Chosen
tool set should be integral part of platform development but the platform
should not be entirely based on the tool set. Though over a period of time, firms
will favor specific tools sets but keep an eye on the future as tool set
development is controlled by the tool maker and that market is also
competitive. Therefore, tool set integration design should be at best, a
modular one.
Consulting is still a service offering with time bound diminishing
utility, and therefore, post deployment services are the only thing that can
help in productizing the solution. The package will remain incomplete sans such
services. Coming back to the original promises that were made, the post
deployment services should be designed towards fulfillment of such promises but
should not be interfering in nature. Hence, it is important to arrive at the
right mix of offerings ranging from strategic level to ticket based support
services. Adoption will be a critical component as realization will only happen
when the change is widely accepted. The last bit is to instill trust in your
customer’s mind by being present till the end of the life cycle. As companies
would evolve their platforms and solutions, customers should also benefit from
this evolution because it increases the longevity of their initial investment.
Lastly, the marketing divisions of these firms need to
invest heavily in identifying patterns of the business goals that these
solutions will serve. They will need to collaborate with their delivery
organizations to understand what will be realistic and suitable for them to
offer. A unique offering will drive up price tags and revenues, while being value
for money for the customers. I hope firms will be able to achieve such packaged
solutions and some of them might even go on to become game changers.
To sum it up, consulting services of specific kind can be
designed, packaged and sold as products, provided they are aligned with business
goals of the customer and help them in transforming their businesses
positively. It will however, require a series of innovations and firms
intending to do this has to be certain the risk appetite that continued innovations require. Though I strongly feel that such risks are worth taking!
