Are you getting enough from your consultants . . .?

Consultants

Who'd be one?

Have you heard the definition of an expert? Sound out the word expert - what does it sound like "x-spurt" - Yes?

Well, we all know that 'x' denotes an unknown quantity - that just leaves spurt, and we all know that a 'spurt' is simply a drip under pressure!

Have you heard the old adage - a consultant simply steals your watch and 'sells' you the time of day!

To be honest their job is not always an easy one - but hey! that what they get paid for - right?

Often though - the right advice at the right time can make or break a project and sometimes that advice can be most valuable right at the beginning of a project. Like - don't do it! Or its just too risky. Have you thought of this?

Well, that's what we set out to address with e-service-expert.com - giving you good advice, up front - about us, about our experience about your project. Just good old friendly neighborly advise - and it shouldn't cost you a fortune.

Do you find consulting just too expensive?

Often times you just need a bit of friendly advice and guidance, particularly when you are just starting out in the field or your department has been earmarked for e-services or you want to kick-off your first e-project. Sure you might want to engage consultants down the line, but if you are like me you want some reliable one-on-one up front without all the hassle of engaging expensive consultants.

e-service-expert.com will get you started and provide just the advice you need to make it a good start.

I was once asked by a large committee for a national e-government project where I thought the risks were? I said, rather flippantly, at the time "at the beginning of the project" - little did I realize then just how true that statement was.

As they say, if you don't know where you are going - all paths lead there. Over the years I have found that knowing where we are going with an e-business or e-service project is often the most challenging aspect of the project, and one that can lead us down the proverbial 'garden path'.

A few choice pieces of advice from someone who has been there, done that and particularly if that someone has worked in the same area of government, health, business or whatever that you do can save you from disaster.

To my mind that advice shouldn't cost you or your organization a fortune in consulting fees. The trouble is getting a good consultant from wherever they are located in the world is an expensive process.

When I was sending consultants to some of our African clients it used to cost me thousands of pounds just to get them there and of course who pays in the end - I give you three guesses!

So fear not, put your company purchase order book away at e-service-expert.com you can get the advice you need up-front - and much of it without spending a penny!

Do you find that the so called experts don't always measure up to your expectations?

We all know the game - send in the best, then use the rest.

Sometimes that first few sessions with the best consultants the consultancy has to offer is great.

But often, the best are there simply to sell the rest and that wouldn't be so bad if the advice you received at the start was not constrained by the need to build a lucrative project team within your organization.

Many consultancy companies simply do not propose anything which might challenge the client's thinking because they risk losing the work.

On the other hand, are you one of those consultants or experts from afar who would dearly love to proffer some more radical thinking - ideas that you know would be in the best long-term interests of your clients but are afraid to do so in case you lose a valuable assignment for your firm. e-service-expert.com can help overcome those initial engagement blues.

At e-service-expert.com we can help make that first step easier by removing the $million price tag and the commercial imperative to do business from the equation and from the engagement process.

You see, at e-service-expert.com we believe we believe you should only 'buy-in' consultants when you are ready - and that means that you are entirely happy as to where it will all lead.

By bridging the gap between experts and those with genuine need, and having explored the possibilities (radical and conservative) in a non-commercial environment everyone is in a better position to commission a project and lead it to a successful conclusion.

You need too, to get to know you adviser and them to know you - in this way you can enter into a trusted long term relationship, more the family doctor and confidante than the clinical specialist.

Have you ever noticed - the 'do as I say not as I do' attitude some consultants have?

As a new senior business consultant for a major IT vendor in the 80's, I was perplexed at the way we could be told to advise our clients to do one thing when we ourselves did not. You need an integrated financial information system, a central database, a computer on every desk and so on.

Look in the offices of the major IT vendors and you would find nothing of the sort. Sure, they eventually came round and adopted their own recommendations - and guess what? Many time they found their advice was flawed. So many fads - so many flawed starts.

Over the years I have seen many ICT fads come and go - e-services isn't one of them - it has already stood the test of time.

Another thing I have noticed is how now concepts, develop, build and converge. New concepts are often presented as complete opposites to what we have been doing - black and white. Usually, experience teaches us that the answer is somewhere in between. This is nowhere more true than in the technology platforms that underpin e-service development projects and programs. Read more in the 'pulse of ICT developments'.

Do you think software houses are the best to advise on the use of their products?

I wouldn't name names, but I have lost count of the many times reliance on a software house (however brilliant their software is) has failed to find the best uses for its technology. What does that tell you?

For a start you will need to push your suppliers hard to deploy the software the way it works best for you. Of course a little knowledge can be dangerous here and you cannot expect completely change the underlying scope of what the software was designed to do.

But with a bit of free thinking expertise on the software and your imagination its often possible to take a revolutionary new solution to the '80% sure it can be done' stage, convince the suppliers of their own capability and revolutionize a new e-service.

Again, that old commercial constraint forces software suppliers in to the 'no variations allowed here' mentality. It can cost money to have too many variations of their software in the market - support, development, risk mitigation etc.

In addition, many large ICT vendors and consultants are poor at internal communications and one country or office may be completely oblivious to the developments that have been successfully undertaken in another - strange but true. e-service-expert.com can help bridge the gap - chances are if you have identified a need in a particular sector, someone in that sector has too.

The next step is to locate a technical expert that can verify how it is done, how it was done and the challenges you may face along the way. That leaves you in a much better position to get the job done and not be 'fobbed off' by your in-house technical team or local software consultants.

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