Strategic Management and Core Competence

The management of a consulting project calls on a variety of skills. This is an actuality that has been stressed throughout the course lectures, seminars and cases as well as throughout the course literature. The fact that consultants must integrate their skills when conducting a consulting project is as clear-cut as it is evident.

The advantage of bringing an external party will help to harmonise the sales, service process and systems. The Consulting companies are specialist in their field and using their expertise will help manoeuvre the Company in right direction.

Whether they deserve it or not, it is notable that consultants and their business morals have been questioned and caricatured. Statements such as ``The new witch doctors'' or ``Consultants are people who borrow your watch to tell you the time and then walk off with it'' have often been quoted. A headline like ``They change colour according to the environment'' indicates a certain unreliability. However, it also has to be recognized that consultants often operate in situations characterized by ambiguity, sensitivity and bounded rationality. Therefore it can be expected that recipients in situations where they might be slightly criticized will react with

Technology has impacted everyone’s life, and this is one of the reasons why many chose to invest in the services of management consulting to improve organizational efficiency and effectiveness. This industry was historically founded in the year 1986 but it becomes popular after the emergence of IT industry. At present the industry has more than 15 big companies operating all over USA and in the New York region.

Mostly are large consulting firms (more than 30 employees) that offer consulting services to small and medium sized businesses. However, these large firms cannot cost effectively service this market due to high overhead and labour costs. Small and medium sized businesses usually cannot afford the high hourly fees charged by these firms. Business from this target market does not represent a significant portion of the revenues generated by these large firms which all specialize in new projects.

strength and position in the market as an “implementation” consulting firm. The firm’s ability to

There is possibly a market for a new model of consulting services, divorced from specialist design outputs, the goal of which is to help organizations manage Design as a critical element of strategic management.

Topic: “Outline and discuss the concepts of strategic capabilities, core competencies and strategic competitive advantage and how they relate. In your discussion, consider how CEOs utilise these concepts in the strategic management process to build and sustain a firm 's competitive position”

Significant experience in collaborating with Business stakeholders, project teams, digital and support teams across geographies and companies

for their expertise and knowledge. Consultants also need to possess good personal skills so as to be

The concept of strategy is as old as the history of wars itself. “The Art of War” the first comprehensive book on strategy was written about 500 BC. The roots of strategy are in competition. The word “strategic” derives from the Greek word “strategos,” which means “a general set of manoeuvres carried out to overcome an enemy during combat” (Nutt & Backoff 1992, p. 56). However, corporate strategy gained the recognition of being a separate field of study around fifty years ago (Kay 2003). The most famous work on for-profit strategy is Porter’s “Competitive Strategy”. He defines strategy as: “developing a competitive strategy is developing a broad formula for how a business is going to compete, what its goals

Is our strategy pertinent to our opponents? What is the core of a good strategy? (Porter, 2015) So, on and so forth. Get together as a complete team, using communication. There are mutual mistakes made by executives daily, by perplexing the strategy with the goal. Is the company’s strategy comprehensive? Always remember that, activities are dissimilar from the strategy. The strategy is more than a mission statement, or a vision statement. A good strategy is very precise. Focus on the ability to make good selections and the company will contend, and differentiate itself from the opposition. This is vital to the accomplishment of the company. The core levels of our strategy are how we compete in the industry. A.K.A. Business Strategy. You need a strategy for each separate business within the company. Bring these businesses together successfully, we then create value? That’s corporate strategy.

According to Clarkston Consulting by having a full integrated system the business process is simplified and efficient providing a platform for organisations to meet their needs and projected growth. This intervention made by the consultancy firm indicates that consultancy as a practice can contribute to an increase in efficiency in organisations, which will lead to an increase in economic activity by the organisation and in turn help the economy.

Far from the identification of the above issues, the business consultant develops solutions to issues named. The idea is to capitalize on the opportunities to ensure success. a company may have a strong sales department but a weak marketing department. The company should therefore focus majorly on sales as they input more resources on the marketing department.

(26) They are believed to maintain objectivity which is a crucial in certain cases such as working on a certain policy proposal. Both the public and private sector use consultancy to access specialist skills that are not available internally.(1) Management Consultancies Association (MCA) conducted a survey that showed that 72 percent of management consulting work commissioned for central government due to the lack of relevant specialist skills in-house (3). Given the more complex nature of projects that are mostly IT related, departments require specialist expertise that they lack. (5) Moreover, management consultancy is believed to provide security. Managers are often insecure about vital decisions and consultants provide sense of order and direction (26). Big Four consultancy firms (Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KRMG and PwC) are especially associated with comfort and security. (1)Another crucial reason for employing consultants is cost reduction. Governments all over the world are attempting to cut costs, for instance, by commissioning complex IT projects to enable certain activities to be done online (22). The Comprehensive Spending Report puts additional pressure on government’s departments to be cost efficient. (2) Hiring management consultants can help a department to implement cost-cutting procedures maintaining necessary level of performance. (17)