To beat the competition you must not only be the best one in your category. You must be the best in the category that’s in demand. Information technology has high pace of change. So consultant’s services must change rapidly, he must offer high quality services on demand.
John Arthur Ricketts gives the following attribute to service on demand in his book Reaching The Goal: How Managers Improve a Services Business Using Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints
- Responsive
- Variable
- Focused
- Resilient
Want to beat the competition? Consider adopting these attributes too.
Responsive Services
Rickets writes:
Responsive – The enterprise can sense and respond because it has an integrated view of its customer, employees, suppliers, business partners, and competitors.
To build my responsiveness for customers’ needs I put under my radar anything that can have significant impact on the customers. Here are few examples:
- Customer’s industry or vertical’s news. For example, If it finance sector then new regulations can lead to services opportunities.
- Technology updates related to the customer’s environment. Knowing well customer’s current situation and tech trends can support a consultant in helping a customer to build a roadmap for tech refresh and potentially getting a gig.
- Personal preferences updates. For example, a customer might be a football fan. Being updated regarding related news can help striking another engaging conversation that in the end can lead to discussing a business.
- Anticipated changes at customer’s. Collect customer’s information beyond the scope of your current project or assignment. This would help you both aligning yourself better to the organization needs and potentially would create a leads for possible future gigs.
Variable Services
Rickets writes
Variable – The enterprise can alter its productivity, costs, marketing, and finances as conditions change because it has flexible processes and resource.
The main cost for consultant is related to time. Billable time and non-billable time. Reducing non-billable time related to non-productive work reduces cost dramatically!! But remember! Training and self recreation IS productive work although it is non-billable. That means you have to have clear processes and procedures to accomplish your tasks faster without spending time for adminstrativa, commuting, or other non-productive work. Here are few approaches I use to reduce non-productive work:
- Have marketing one page glossies to be sent or left behind for potential prospects.
- Have baseline SOW’s to be quickly customized as needed.
- Have delivery kits that guide the deliver processes.
- Have the list of common problems and solutions.
Focused Services
Rickets writes:
Focused – The enterprise concentrates on its core competencies while using strategic business partners to handle its noncore tasks.
Focusing on my strengths helps me build my expertise. The better expert I become the faster I can produce a quality results. Surveying customer proves it time and again, they keep responding that timely quality response is what they value the most. As Gerald M. Weinberg put it in his epic book Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully:
The wider your spread the thinner it gets.”
Resilient Services
Rickets writes:
Resilient – The enterprise rapidly handles changes and deals with threats because it has a flexible operating environment.
I adopted this approach following Mark Twain advice:
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.”
It helped me reinvent myself several times. Being a consultant I was focusing on several areas:security, performance, and solution architecture to mention a few. I am having fun, I am fully utilized, and I am working on high impact challenges. I was reacting to market demand proactively by building my skills upfront. Such resilience helped me staying in the game. To effectively build myself for the next challenge without hurting my utilization and work/life balance I apply the following techniques:
- Proactively allocate time for training. Give it high priority as it was your most valuable customer. Make sure any time collisions are resolved the way that does not hurt your training roadmap.
- Know the trends. Read well recognized blogs and other online resources. Identify the trends.
- Build your network. Connect personally with those in the know. Do not abuse the connection. Use it only for critical decision making. Ask really good questions - make the other guy want you to ask those questions in the future.
- Practice. Build your expertise by getting your feet wet and your hands dirty – there is no other way around, you must know it first hand.
Practice This - Get Results
- Know what’s important to the customer or what can have an impact it his business – be responsive.
- Cut fat, reduce costs by being more effective with less – be variable.
- Invest in your strengths, build your deep dive skills – be focused.
- Build yourself for the next challenge now – be resilient.
- Read Reaching The Goal: How Managers Improve a Services Business Using Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints
- beat the competition.
2 comments ↓
Yep, that’s what holds me above the surface so far…
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