For as long as technology has started to exist, so has consulting services. Now, it is fairly common for business owners, stakeholders, and employees to see little to no value in the investment in technology consultants. Many of these people usually do not mind the price of the licenses for the software however, sees a huge issue in paying for consulting services.
Can consultants be dispensed with when implementing new technology? Sure you can but there are serious consequences if your internal resources are not skilled enough to troubleshoot the impending issues – because there will be.
One thing that is not realized easily is that at one time or another, every business has turned into outside help in resolving internal problems simply because their picture of the problem gets a bit cloudy or because their skills are not ripe yet to solve such issues or even when they have the skills, they don´t have the time.
Is it really right to cheap out in consulting services? Are they even worth the money? Here are the 4 advantages of seeking help from technology consultants
- Leadership and guidance through experience
Implementing a new software is a big investment and a stressful process. Time, attention, and sufficient resources are demanded. The good thing with hiring technology consultants is that when you implement a new software in your organization, they can leverage their experience in the implementation of such software by applying all the lessons they have learned from their mistakes and successes in the past.
A consultant doesn´t just do what is asked of them to do. Their most important contribution is that they help guide you towards best practices to better optimize the use of your new tool within the organization. With technology consultants, you can be guaranteed guidance and straightforward leadership on how to best approach different circumstances.
- Necessary Skills training
In the Business Intelligence arena, in every single implementation of a new software, training is a crucial part of it all. Majority of the times consultants help in business modeling and building infrastructure to allow the company to move towards a more sophisticated way of working. To ensure that this is fully achieved and sustained, business users must be trained until they reach a certain level of confidence and comfort in using the new tool.
Some consultants do the training after the implementation while others do training while they are still in the development portion. Training that is provided by the technology consultants ensures that there is better adoption of the new technology and ensures that the business users can troubleshoot problems themselves when they encounter it later on. Together with the training, the consultants can document the software for future reference of the business users.
- Time efficiency
Some companies in the beginning of the project are very optimistic about what they think they can deliver. However, when it comes down to it, they realize their skills aren´t at that level yet or they just simply do not have the time to really figure it all out. With every day they waste, work is halted, money is wasted.
While consultants cost money, a good way to look at it is also how much you think your resources´ time is worth. If you need to pull out your staff to do a certain business modeling for 4 days when it can be achieved by a consultant in half a day or 1 day, then it is much cheaper in the long run to pay for consultants.
- Staffing issue easy fix
If you ask anyone involved in hiring, they will tell you that it not only is an expensive process, it is a long one too without guarantee of the quality. With technology consultants, you will have that person you can call on when you need it and there will always be a person that the rest of your team can talk to when they need advice. That is a valuable contribution of technology consultants.
There is no wrong or right pricing for consultants because it all depends on their skill, experience, and how well they manage the customer relationship. However, with technology consultants there is accountability and readily available help.
Do you need someone to help implement your financial software for you? Email us at info@dspanel.com or visit us at www.performancecanvas.com
DSPanel offers cutting edge technology platform for business analytics, planning, and visualization. DSPanel designs, builds, and operates with the end users in mind. Performance Canvas was created by DSPanel to answer the unarticulated needs of the market not addressed by previous available solutions. With Performance Canvas, information is transformed into valuable business insights for the business executives to utilize in their decision-making process. DSPanel currently has over 2500 organizations deploying their solutions.
