Due to the recent financial turmoil around the world, many companies will increasingly pay more attention to organization diagnosis and long-term strategy setup in order to respond to external drastic environment changes. Meanwhile, small & medium-siz...
Due to the recent financial turmoil around the world, many companies will increasingly pay more attention to organization diagnosis and long-term strategy setup in order to respond to external drastic environment changes. Meanwhile, small & medium-sized companies (SMEs) will establish their management strategy by receiving outside expert consulting.
In fact, so far, management consulting for SMEs in Korea has been very poor in both volume and quality. In addition, consulting firms have not made much effort to improve their consulting performance quality. As a result, consulting for SMEs has not progressed that much, being only in a stalemate situation, except for government support consulting cases. Recognizing real estate price change as part of management activities, advanced countries have created their corporate value by actively using professional consulting service. In contrast, Korea has not even established the consulting infrastructure for its efficient usage.
Now, it's time for Korea to make preparations in earnest to firmly set up the consulting market. That's why it's all the more meaningful to study consulting effects and results as to SMEs and consulting firms (consultants) which are the main participants in the consulting market.
Assumption analysis results in this study are as follows. First, preparation for and recognition of consulting - as part of SME consulting pre-management process - will impact consulting performance, suggesting that SMEs' preparation for consulting goals and plans before receiving consulting is key to consulting performance. Shortly, preparation for and recognition of consulting is a critical success factor in the consulting market. Second, in the process of consulting, SMEs' roles - such as leading organizational change through consulting, implementing enterprise wide stage-specific checkup activities in consulting, communicating resource support plans, necessary resource supply commitments and consulting needs from managers to employees - all are important to improve consulting results. Third, SMEs need to lead and manage post-consulting process in order to improve and maintain good consulting performance. Fourth, consulting firm's organizing ability is also important for consulting success. It's shown that consulting firm's organizational response ability and credibility are key to consulting performance and market success. Fifth, it's proven that consultant's expertise and management ability are critical of consulting performance and success. However, it's not fully backed up by explanation over its model. Sixth, in consulting, consulting firms' (consultants') communication and cooperation with the client company concerned (including client's participation) are significant. Seventh, systematic and consistent consulting process is key to consulting performance. The consulting with appropriate planning, schedule management and methodology has significant influence over consulting satisfaction and performance. In addition, consistent consulting purpose and scope are important for consulting performance.
The following is what I found to do in order to improve consulting performance in terms of client management and consulting firm itself. First, the client which asked for consulting need to fully understand what consulting means to the company. By understanding practical elements of consulting, the client can identify specific goal and possible impact on its existing business when contacting a consulting firm for consulting service. It means that the client should take into consideration its consulting participation organization units and their participation time in advance and should provide top management's active supports for and working-level staff's commitments to consulting. Second, consulting firms need to be equipped with good expertise of related area, thereby being able to clearly suggest consulting target and scope early, and to apply appropriate consulting methodology to the consulting situation concerned. It is also important to systematically manage the consulting process and to provide legal and institutional supports for consulting such as systematic development of expert consultants for specific professional areas.
Key word : Consulting, Consulting Industry, Consulting Market. Consulting performance, Consulting success factor