by
RUSSIAN EMIRATES
66
ÍÅÄÂÈÆÈÌÎÑÒÜ, ÁÈÇÍÅÑ, ÈÍÂÅÑÒÈÖÈÈ
W
hile ten
years ago
theword
“consulting”perplexedmany people here,
today it became very common. Manymedium
and largeUkrainianbusinesses use consulting
services extensively. This business has been
developing inUkraine at a steady pace and
more andmore companies have been trying
toget their niche in this sector offering certain
approaches and concepts of consulting.
Ukrainian consultingmarket has been
growingout of adolescence for the past three
years. The “wild” capitalism time is over, now
one has to earnhismoney. Themarket has
been saturatinggradually andprofitability
has beendecreasing. Inorder to survive the
competitionone has to forget the outdated
businessmethods and introduce new trends in
the business, optimize production and improve
the topmanagement qualification. Only the
independent business consultant can advise on
all these issues because his competence iswell
above andbeyond the corresponding skills of
your employees.
Today, consultingmarket is quite broad and
the services it offers are diverse. Suchdiversity
candisorient unsophisticatedmanagers.
However, it isworth remembering that
consultants’ activities cover various functional
aspects of business and the issues they explore
lie indifferent planes. This partly explainswhy
there are somany consulting companies on the
market – even though themarket is far from
saturation. It is possible to formulate the goal
of all the consultants inone phrase: “Findout
ways to improve business”. Companies offer a
variety of training sessions, workshops, team-
building events, strategy development, finance
and tax planning andmanymore. Certainly, all
of the above is quite necessary and topical for
business because these are components of a
more general term “management”.
Despite the seemingly abundant options
Consulting–not apanacea
Butaneffectivemedicine
Ukrainianbusiness
consultants are
entering international
market
onUkraine’s consultingmarket, experts report
that competition is not very high, the number
of existingoperators ismuch lower than the
market capacity. However, for entirely different
reasons, somemanagers try toorganize their
business on their own. Usually this yields no
positive results. Other people regularly allocate
funding for personnel training. Although
training cannot resolve all issues at once – it is
just one of the toolsmanagers canuse tomake
their business competitive.
Quite oftenmanagers try to savemoney on
professional consulting and attempt to “heal”
their businesses on their ownusing the advice
of their lawyers, economists, financemanagers,
etc. However, it isworthnoticing that there are
always relations like “boss – employee” between
managers and staff consultants. Subordinate
tries to showhis bosswhat the latter wants to
see and sometimes fears to tell bitter truth. Also,
employeesmay have conflicts of interests or
career intrigues. Though the fact thatmatters
themost, is that staff consultants canonly see
issues from the inside, whilewhat is needed
here is a look from the outside.
Somemanagers think of training as
something as extreme as surgery. When their
business is not doingwell for no apparent
reason themanagermake the “life-saving”
decision: Let’s buy a training session! However
as a one-time thing it is hardly productive or
efficient. Such trainingmay provide strong
impact encouraging transformation though it
cannot resolve reorganization issues. Sometimes
the effectmay evenbe counterproductive,
whenpeople receive abundant and redundant
informationnot knowinghow touse it.
The best option is outsourcingof a
consultant for regular consultations or at least
for getting “doctor’s advice” when it begins to
really “hurt” (though this is not recommended).
In some cases, especiallywhennew
management concepts are tobe implemented
it is necessary to invite experts in certain
“narrow” fields and any qualified consultant
