Quality of Business Consulting Services Cristian-Ştefan CRĂCIUN Lecturer PhD, Christian University Dimitrie Cantemir, Bucharest, Romania E-mail: cristianstefancraciun@yahoo.com Abstract Quality is now recognized as a major factor of economic success. Sustainable business results require a service strategy, centered on the customer and quality. Today, all over the world, excellence through quality is one of the best strategies applied by successful organizations. Quality of the busineess consulting services is very important and companies should believe in the benefits of using the consultants. For a better perception of quality, such benefits may be maximized by a great preparing of consultancy project, by its complete defining, as well as by defining the limits and the expected results, by an appropiate selection of the consultants using market validated criteria and by creation of a functional frame for the consultancy project s implementation, a correct frame for both parties. Keywords: business, consulting services, quality, quality management principles, strategies Quality Of Services The strategic importance of quality is being recognized more and more by the business and academic communities. The successful performance of an organization is based on these essential aspects: above and beyond customer s needs satisfaction, through a common effort by everyone in the organization, as well as by its outside partners, such as suppliers, subcontractors, carriers, whole-salers, retailers, distributors and others (Kelada 1989). For the services quality improvement, the best solutons to be immediately applied in companies are the personnel trening and motivation, as well as the implementation of the quality management system as a first step to the approach of the whole management quality in these companies and they also represents a way of ensuring the products and services competitiveness together with the trustworthiness of the services companies on the market (Stanciu 2009). Companies which consider quality as an important factor of success and competitiveness should take into consideration the implementation of quality management principles, such us (ISO 9004:2009): Principle 1 Customer focus; 53 www.hrmars.com
Organizations depend on their customers and therefore should understand current and future customer needs, should meet customer requirements and strive to exceed customer expectations. Principle 2 Leadership; Leaders establish unity of purpose and direction of the organization. They should create and maintain the internal environment in which people can become fully involved in achieving the organization s objectives. Principle 3 Involvement of people; People at all levels are the essence of an organization and their full involvement enables their abilities to be used for the organization s benefit. Principle 4 Process approach; A desired result is achieved more efficiently when activities and related resources are managed as a process. Principle 5 System approach to management; Identifying, understanding and managing interrelated processes as a system contributes to the organization s effectiveness and efficiency in achieving its objectives. Principle 6 Continual improvement; Continual improvement of the organization s overall performance should be a permanent objective of the organization. Principle 7 Factual approach to decision making; Effective decisions are based on the analysis of data and information. Principle 8 Mutually beneficial supplier relationships. An organization and its suppliers are interdependent and a mutually beneficial relationship enhances the ability of both to create value. There are many different ways of applying these quality management principles. The nature of the organization and the specific challenges it faces will determine how to implement them. Many organizations will find it beneficial to set up quality management systems based on these principles. In realization of a quality management system, organizations may choose to rely on their own resources, but many of them will use the services of external consultants. The selection of a consultant by an organization can be a critical factor in determining the success of the implementation and realization process, in order to ensure that the resulting quality management system is capable of meeting the organization s planned objetives and that this is achieved in the most efficient and economical manner (ISO 10019:2005). 54 www.hrmars.com
The Role Of Quality In Business Consulting Services In a business consulting company, the services quality level mainly depends on the way the top managers approach the quality issue taking into account the aspects of setting up a certain quality systematic conception, starting from the full comprehension of the customers demands and also the aspects regarding the human resources involvement in all the company departments in order to reach the quality principles, so that the human relations should represent an important element of the services quality (Crăciun 2012). The main role of quality in business consulting services is highlighted especially in consultancy contracting and use. The retaining of the consulting services is not an easy task, considering the intangibile nature of these services and the fact that, most of the times, the effects of these services can be seen in time. However, the following aspects should be given consideration during the retaining process (Svasta 2010): time of consulting mission triggering; implementation timetable; nomination by the client organization of a person in charge of the consulting project development; schedule of payments to the consultant; intellectual property. The quality of a business consulting service is evaluated considering the following main aspects: impact on the turnover; impact on the operational activity; impact on the employees productivity; impact on the cost; eventual changes incurred into the organization s structure. Relevant Quality Issues In The Business Consulting Domain To find the best solutions to their problems, companies often resort business consulting services. Companies should focus on those aspects to be considered during the process of defining a consulting project and selecting the consultants, to ensuring the premises of a successful consulting mission. A client s need for external assistance relating to business matters arises in several cases. The experience showed that a client organization frequently resorts to consultancy services when it reaches a critical threshold in its development, which is either generated by a favorable evolution or by an unfavorable evolution of the organization. The continuous sales decrease, the loss of market share, the difficult macroeconomic context, all of these may bring the organization at a critical level that cannot be surpassed without the 55 www.hrmars.com
help of experienced professionals. Similarly, the uncontrolled development of an organization may lead to a dramatic deterioration of financial indicators, sometimes up to reaching the insolvency and this is another case in which the organization calls for external help. The success of a consulting project depends to a large extent on the good collaboration between the client and the consultant, within a joint client-consultant team and a good collaboration may be achieved if the respective relationship is governed by professionalism and athical principles and the parties expectations and interests are in harmony. For this reason, the awareness and taking upon the expectations and interests of the other party by the beneficiaries and consultants represent a vital process. On the choice of consultants, there are no universally valid criteria or standards for the consultants selection, each organization being free to define its own criteria, reflecting its own organizational culture and own business style. In practice, however, certain criteria have become prominent during the selection of the business consulting companies, criteria which, once taken into account, constitute important premises for the success of the future consulting project. Thus, a client organization must assess the following upon selecting its consulting partner (Svasta 2010): Integrity and professional ethics the consulting company It is important for the client organization to verify whether the consulting provider subscribes to a set of ethical values: the consultant will have access to very important, sometimes confidential information and will be involved in major decisions of the organization or the organization s decisions will be underlined by the results of his work. Professional competence The lack or provisional unavailability of professional competence in a given functional domain or in relation to a given problem of the organization is one of the main reasons why the latter resorts to the services of a business consulting company. Therefore, the assessment of the consultant s professional competence is vital. The client may verify this aspect by requesting the submission of some work methodologies, successfully used by the consultant during other completed consulting missions. Problem solving approach The consultant must prove an understanding of the client-organization problem and must offer the best action proposal. Capacity to deliver on time The consulting company must prove that the same holds the team and infrastructure required in order to develop the proposed consulting project and offer a realistic schedule of the project activity implementation. 56 www.hrmars.com
Ability to deploy resources The consulting company must have available human resources with relevant skills during the mission; and the client organization must have available time and personnel in order to be able to offer the required support. In the case of extended consulting projects, solutions for possible cases of unavailability should be identified. Consultant s image and reputation The principle that reputation precedes is also true in the case of the business consulting companies. Therefore, during the selection process, a client organization must be informed about the market reputation of the offeror consulting companies and/or request offers only from a short list of companies, based on recommendations of some business partners or industry colleagues, from professional associations in this domain or other trustworthy persons. A consequence of the economic life complexity growth is the problem of decision making, considered a rational choice of an action line from different perspectives in order to achieve a certain objective, for example, choosing a business consultant. Main criteria for structuring consultancy competences are: marketing, business development, feasibility surveys, seeking strategic partners, restructuring/reorganization, implementing the management systems, engineering surveys, computerized management systems. Once the competence related to the consultancy project is identified, the consultancy company shall be selected according to specific criteria and, which is the most important, according to the experience into the respective competence field. As for the shaping the multicriterial decisional processes in the field of consulting services quality management, there can be used an economic-mathematical model concerning the optimization of the consultants choice decision in the quality management through a certain decision making method the Electre I method with the following assessment criteria for the economic efficiency: the investment value, time of performance, the consultant s qualification and experience, the value of the consultant s portfolio works of a similar complex (Crăciun 2012). Nowadays, a new trend in business consulting services domain is developing of innovative adiacent and complete services. Merely satisfying a consumer s needs regarding consultancy is no longer enough, it must now strive for his enthusiasm and delight. References Crăciun, C. Şt., Managementul calităţii serviciilor de consultanţă, Universitară Publishing House, Bucharest, 2012; Kelada, J., Integral Quality Management. The Path to Total Quality, Published by Quebec Inc., 1989; Stanciu, I., Calitologia. Ştiinţa calităţii mărfurilor. Bazele merceologiei, Renaissance Publishing House, Bucharest, 2009; Stanciu, I., Managementul calităţii totale, Ediţia a II-a, Pro Universitaria Publishing House, Bucharest, 2007; 57 www.hrmars.com
Svasta, M. (coord.), Consultant în România. Profesia şi piaţa de consultanţă în management din România. Bune practici în consultanţă în management, A.M.C.O.R. Publishing, Bucharest, 2010; ISO 10019:2005 Standard - Guidelines for the selection of quality management system consultants and use of their services ISO 9000:2005 Standard - Quality management systems -- Fundamentals and vocabulary ; ISO 9001:2008 Standard - Quality management systems -- Requirements ; ISO 9004:2009 Standard - Managing for the sustained success of an organization -- A quality management approach. 58 www.hrmars.com