When it comes to a good change consultant, there should be no compromises. Kilian Vermeulen knows the key qualifications the ideal partner should possess.
"Which is more valuable for a consultancy guiding us through a change process: extensive experience with such processes, or extensive experience in our industry?"
Kilian Vermeulen, manager at the consultancy Blue Advisory GmbH, offers his insights. Change processes are not all the same.
A change process generally involves a planned and systematic transformation within a company or organisation. These changes might affect business processes, organisational structures, technologies, products, and/or services. Depending on the situation, goals such as improved (process) efficiency, competitiveness, or customer satisfaction might be pursued.
Therefore, no two change processes are identical, and the skills required can vary depending on the nature, scope, complexity, or objectives of the changes. It’s crucial to have the right competencies to effectively manage the change process and overcome the associated challenges, such as resistance to change, communication issues, limited internal resources, or employee overload.
To ensure successful change, the transformation should always be planned, executed, supported, and followed up on meticulously and systematically. To achieve this, experienced consultancies are often called upon.
Choosing the "right" change consultant
However, there is no straightforward answer when determining whether experience in change management or industry-specific expertise holds more value for selecting an appropriate change consultant. Both can be advantageous, depending on your company's specific needs and the change process at hand.
On one hand, a consultancy with extensive change management experience can offer valuable strategies and methods to ensure the transformation goes smoothly and efficiently. Often, best practices from change processes in other companies can be leveraged to find optimal solutions. For example, we are currently assisting a medium-sized engineering company in overhauling its product development process, ensuring a successful change through targeted communication and training formats, informed by insights from similar transformations.
On the other hand, a consultancy with significant experience in your industry can provide critical sector-specific knowledge and insights that should be considered in the change process. This might include detailed understanding of current market trends, regulatory requirements, or customer expectations. For instance, we are currently assisting several energy providers in transforming their service and product offerings from traditional energy sales to a more service-oriented approach, impacting products, processes, and organisation. Extensive knowledge about technologies, industry, and customer segments/needs provides significant value because of the often product-centric nature of the change.
Ideally, the "right" consultant will have both change management experience and industry expertise. This enables them to offer a comprehensive range of support to guide you and your company through the change process effectively.
(Source: B4B-Schwaben)
