What is Consulting

It seems sometimes that every company out there has its own definition of what consulting actually is. Add to that the fact that many people have an image ingrained in their mind about it that was formed by pop culture (most notably the Bobs in Office Space). I feel it is important for me to lay out what our definition is to help readers better understand why we do things the way we do.

Consulting to Integrated Strategies is about helping to improve a client’s business. Not just to come up with some ideas about how to save them money, but honestly improve their business so that they can continue to grow and support their core mission. Sometimes the answer is that they need to add costs to their structure so that the have the flexibility to face a new challenge awaiting them down the road. Sometimes it’s to outsource their entire Real Estate function to a third party. Most of the time it’s something more simple.

A lot of consulting companies talk about Six Sigma and how they do Six Sigma and what Six Sigma can do for a business. No one talks about the basics behind Six Sigma anymore. We do. We don’t sell ourselves as being a Six Sigma firm. Can we do it? Yes, but for most clients they don’t need Six Sigma. They need the fundamentals. They need to understand their processes and why they do the things they do. Six Sigma is a continuous improvement process. In the perfect world it helps to always improve processes down to the point where errors are nearly non-existent. Unfortunately it does not help processes that are out of alignment with business practices to begin with. It does not provide a platform for broad reaching reform.

The way we do consulting is to work with companies to really understand their business. Then we take our expertise and experience to help them put in place the correct processes to enable their on-going success. Not only do we make the suggestions, but we stay around to help them implement and adapt to new information. We stake our reputation and our partnership with the client on actually putting our recommendations in place and showing success.

What it comes down to is that every client is a partner to us. We aren’t looking for one-off engagements. Will we take them? Sure, but we still look to expand the relationship. Our sales and marketing isn’t based on the latest buzzwords, fads or trends. Consulting is about results and making those results happen on an on-going and regular basis.

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