Highlights
- Consultants provide a balanced view without pushing specific products.
- Big companies offer scalable solutions but may be overkill.
- Small IT companies can tailor solutions but can create long-term dependencies.
- Building your own team offers control but takes time.
- A consultant helps you navigate these options for the best fit.
What you want as a business leader, owner, or department head is to understand
- how much you can improve your business,
- how much it costs,
- how long it takes, and
- the risks involved.
You need someone who understands your business and knows the possibilities of digital transformation. They should connect the dots and give you a plan on how to get there.
Often, an independent consultant is best for this initial conversation and planning. They don’t have an agenda to sell a specific product or a big company’s services. Their goal is to equip you with enough information to make well-informed decisions on how to proceed. They can help you choose who to work with, what to ask, how much to invest, and what to expect. Ideally, this consultant can present these options to you.
Hire a consultant before you hire a company or internal employees.
Getting started with consultants is the best way for business leaders to kick off their digital transformation. They can advise you on how to tackle data and digital transformation in your business, balancing risks, funds, timeline, and business impact.
Your Alternatives
Big Companies (e.g., SAP, Microsoft):
🟢Pros: Competent, scalable, long-term support, and many employees can maintain their solutions.
🔴Cons: They may try to fix all your problems with their toolset, even if it’s not the best fit. Their tools often require significant configuration and setup, which can be expensive or overly complex. It’s like buying an Audi Q7 just to do your groceries on Sundays—overkill.
Smaller IT Companies:
🟢Pros: Solutions are tailored to your needs, not too big or small, just right.
🔴Cons: Building from scratch takes time, and you become dependent on their support. Replacing them with another company is theoretically possible but challenging in practice, leading to compromises and potential rebuilding. You’re stuck with them.
Building Your Own Team:
🟢Pros: Full control over what happens in your organization. Safe and effective in the long term.
🔴Cons: Requires careful planning on the skills and number of people needed. This is the slowest route. Hiring takes 3-9 months, and building solutions takes another year before seeing benefits.
These alternatives aren’t all bad, and I may be highlighting the negative aspects, but they are real scenarios I’ve seen in my career.
The Consultant’s Role
The consultant is the person who sits with the business understanding and the digital experience – makes a proposal on the ideal mix of the above alternatives for your business. They outline the sequence, timing, funding needs, and expected ROI at the end and along the way.
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