What is a consultant  ?

Many times defining terms concerning business force environment by ourselves, is slightly different from what really is. So how can we define a consultant?

A consultant is a person who consults with another or others.

A consultant is an expert who is called on for professional or technical advice or opinions.

What do we mean by ‘consult’ or an ‘expert’?

To consult means ‘to seek advice from’ someone who knows more than you or someone else for the specific issue. We all know that there might or might not be a connection between our training and our knowledge and skills. From this, it follows that a consultant, if he or she is indeed an expert, must be an effective learner that is capable of acquiring knowledge and skill from experience, whether or not that experience involves training.

SOMETHING USEFUL!!!! Expert, experience, experiential and experiment – these words all have a common Latin root – experiri, meaning to try, to test, to prove. A consultant, then is above all else empirical, that is willing to try things to see what happens.

An expert is someone very skillful, someone who's having much training and knowledge in a special field.

More specifically a consultant learns about their clients by observing them. Finally,  what he/she learns about his/her clients, is what he/she eventually shares with his/her clients.

A consultant is someone who helps others profit and learn from their own experience.

A really good consultant also helps clients see the value of their experience.

The following are typical situations when an organization might need a consultant

• The organization has no expertise in the area of need.

• The time of need for a consultant is considered short-term. For example less than a year, with a general start and stop time.

• The organizations previous attempts to meet their own needs were not successful.

• Organization members constantly disagree about how to meet and bring in a consultant to provide their expertise to come to consensus.

• Leaders want an objective perspective by someone without strong biases about the organization’s past and current issues.

• A consultant can do work that no one else wants to ensure the organization is well suited to spend the founder's money.

• The organization wants a consultant to lend credibility to a decision that’s already been made. Τhis situation would be looked at by many experienced consultants as highly unethica

THE VALUE OF CONSULTANT

In recent years the term ‘consultant’ has been appropriated for other uses, sometimes to mean the contractual relationship between an individual and former employer, or even to substitute for the word ‘salesman’. Ιf management consultants are to be seen of value, they must bring distinctive worth to their clients. So what does a management consultant bring to the party? Three areas have been identified:

• The practice of management consultancy

• The practice of management

  The practice of consultancy specialisms.

   

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• mental acuity

• bringing an outsider’s view

• time – for the reason that a client may employ consultants is not that the ability does not exist in the client organization, but there is not enough of it to go round!!