Mantra of building and sustaining a Thriving Practice

The ease of delivering work remotely and the opportunity to control the type and amount of work you do are key trends that have led to verticalisation of practices and nowadays emergence of independent consulting/practices. I, myself, having established a consulting boutique which was short-lived and then presently working as a Practice leader in a Global conglomerate have myriad intricacies of establishing and growing a practice. Each practice is uniquely defined by experience, specializations and clients served, but all business/practice leaders share the challenge of building and sustaining a thriving practice.

Sell results, not services: Keep clients laser-focused on the lasting value you create, and bill based on scope of work and end results. Provide a range of possible cost scenarios and value-adds what you have offered or can offer. Presenting a mix of case studies, testimonials, and client showcases can also prove a powerful business driver--prospective customers want to see what you've done, so they know what you're capable of doing.

Flexible Structure: Business will wax and wane. And because no two projects are alike, you must remain flexible by cultivating a freelance support network. Use contractors from varied industries and disciplines who can introduce additional expertise and perspective. This approach also lets you reduce overhead, minimize risk, and better staff projects to meet clients' needs. You can also look for strategic alliances and partnerships (e.g. product partnerships, etc.)

Initially don’t try to be jack of all trades: Understandably, most businesses are revenue driven and in an attempt to meet the (revenue) target, we have tendency to go after anything to raise the figures in the balance-sheet. Though it is wise to diversify only after you have established your mark/brand and then you are looking other horizons to grow. It may prove lethal/ suicidal to venture into unknown/lesser known domains even when you have not established your practice. Over-aggression can sometimes engulf your own practice. The crux is to excel with your core-competency (what your practice is known for) first.

 

Solid and robust business plan: The rules of the game might have changed but few things remain the same. You need to have a robust business plan which considers most of the possible scenarios, what-if situations, plan-A,B. A reality check here – there is no fool-proof plan. A robust business plan is a well-thought strategy and therefore, reduces the chances of probability.

 

Networking still works: Develop and nurture a strong network. Most successful consultants receive the majority of work from their trusted network. It is indispensable to create an environment that provides you with an ongoing flow of opportunities. Attend networking events, utilize blogging and social media, or create an email newsletter to keep your network up to date. There are many ways to build and nurture a strong network, but the key is to be active. More importantly, develop strong relationships with existing/old customers who can refer you to new ones and at the same time reward you with you more work

 

Excellent core team: Ultimately, it is your team which is going to deliver. Everything can prove to be a marketing gimmick if you team fails to deliver. This makes it paramount to handpick your core-team who has to play a pivotal role in expansion of the practice.

Despite making sure that you have ticked all the above boxes, a lot of the success depends on your leadership and your instincts. You need to have a vision and definitely passion for what you are doing else you will find yourself changing the lane every now and then and frequent change in lane can be fatal (for business).

Selection of Vendors while Outsourcing - Look Under the Surface

Selecting an outsourcing vendor implies a complex process to gauge not only what the provider can do, but also the way it’s done. If your organisation’s assignment falls in the wrong hands, it could endanger organisation’s strategic plans. In return, with a well-selected provider, you will see savings, enhanced product value, and greater speed to market, thus giving your business a competitive edge. Therefore, effective and meticulous due diligence of each vendor is of extreme significance, having high impact on the business and the future plans of the organisation. Today we rarely buy anything without doing our comprehensive research. The story is no different while selecting a vendor – we need to perform a detailed under the surface study as we do while estimating the size of an iceberg.

Generally, Request For Information (RFI) is issued when a company seeks to gain market intelligence regarding options available to meet its requirement. Typically the company enquires the vendors about services they could potentially provide, what differentiates them from other vendors in the marketplace, etc. With an RFI the company does not state a particular intention to award a contract. However, since responding to an RFI is time-consuming for suppliers, generally suppliers will only respond to the RFI if they expect that the buyer will eventually issue an RFP or RFQ.

Web research does provide us some of the key areas to rate a vendor on, such as company overview, market expertise, strengths, etc. All these things can be commonly found after some basic research, and a few discovery demonstrations. Nevertheless, we still see cases where a company has selected a vendor, and that vendor continues to fail on their delivery of the solution. You would think that these failures would be picked up on during their extensive, informed research, but there is more to a company than the aforesaid points. Here we discuss few additional factors to consider when selecting a vendor while outsourcing a business process, service, etc.—those that go beyond pricing, features, and tools.

Financial Health: As mentioned earlier, it is criti­cally important to examine and evaluate the vendor’s financial well-being as well as their services. Today, mergers and acquisitions have become so common that it is not rare that a company’s control is sometimes in the hands of VCs. Venture capital investment, loans and lines of credit to keep operations going—many more complications which necessitates to examine the financial details of the vendor.

i. Search the Web: Look for press releases from investors on your vendor, and read carefully on whether the investment firm is providing capital, or actually purchasing the vendor. Do basic read of the company profile through trusted agencies e.g. D&B, Gartner, etc.

ii. Scrutinize Debt to Equity Ratio: Core finance people would easily understand this while for others, let me quickly explain - this is a swift way to see the financial health of an organization without prying into their books. The Debt to Equity ratio will indicate how much they owe versus how much they own. Understandably, companies with low debt to equity ratio are preferred.

iii. Analyse Annual Growth Rate: Analysing annual growth rate for a horizon of 3-5 years would be good. It provides a more accurate depiction of how the company has fared financially over the past few years. Another similar parameter to study would be annual net income growth rate for the same period.

iv. Cash Flow details: Sometimes companies go bankrupt despite having good annual growth and income. Shortage of cash aggravates the survival, eventually making the go kaput.

Referrals: Besides looking for case studies, it is recommended to get some referrals from some of their customers. This is a good yardstick to gauge their capability, credentials, scalability, quality of workforce, global and functional/industry exposure – this can be inferred from the referrals and the customers they have. Remember, selecting right vendor is important not only as an investment in a solution but it can also be an investment in the people within the vendor-company. Multiple inputs from their customers add dimensions to the vendor (e.g. implementation track record, consulting assignments, etc.) and also give you an indication of the health of the company.

PoCs and Workshops: If you find two vendors at par, then it might be time to suggest a workshop or proof of concept. These are typically 1-2 day engagements with the vendor whereby you give them a simple set of requirements, and ask them to implement it on a small scale. This demonstration makes it powerful and you can get a glimpse of how your future relationship with the vendor will be, and how they work when implementing your solution/business process.

In the contemporary digital world where information is available at behest of our fingertips, there are still those data points that are not publicly known, and getting the right answers can make a big difference in your decision. So it’s important to do your research. Lastly, remember that outsourcing is a long-term relationship, and choosing the right vendor is crucial to meeting your technology, business, and financial objectives. If you base your decision on following the steps above, you will eliminate (or at least minimize) the risks of engaging in a wrongly-selected affiliation that can not only fail to improve your business, but even do harm.