The concept of Consulting is inherently broad. Many things can be defined as “consulting.” But what is the role of consulting in commercial environments?
Commercial consulting seeks to provide strategic advice to businesses to enhance their performance in the sales and marketing domain. This includes optimizing sales processes and strategies, as well as developing skills and capabilities within sales teams, ultimately aiming to increase sales, profitability, and operational efficiency.
There are various consulting methodologies, some tailored specifically to each industry. However, they all generally pursue similar objectives and achieve them using similar tools.
Starting from the premise that you can’t fix what you don’t know, consulting processes typically begin with a situational diagnosis, i.e., understanding how things are currently done.
The data obtained is compared against an “ideal” to grasp what’s lacking to achieve similar results. Selecting this ideal process or company isn’t straightforward because every company’s functioning is influenced by its environment, local economy, market development, and other factors.
Moreover, this ideal model may require resources that the consulting company lacks, such as financial, technological, or human resources.
At mb&l, we choose to base our approach on our own Feasible Ideal© methodology, where instead of using “best of breed” as a benchmark, we define an ideal based on the resources available to the consulted company.
Once we have defined and developed this Feasible Ideal, we identify operational and procedural differences and conduct a gap analysis to set medium-term change objectives.
Subsequently, we recommend the necessary changes to achieve this selected ideal based on the gap analysis findings.
This is a brief description of what should be undertaken in a consultancy. How are the results delivered? What needs to be modified, changed, or improved? How are these changes evaluated?
Well, that’s a bit more complex and warrants a Part 2…
If you have inquiries about Consulting or other topics related to commercial teams, feel free to reach out. Sales are our passion, and we’d be delighted to assist you.