Now as a consulting firm we are a boutique. This means we do not offer ‘full’ services and we prefer to concentrate in the area of business and marketing strategy. I have had well-meaning friends telling me that this is a very narrow area and we ought to add to our offerings. To this my answer has always been that a) we want to do what we love doing most and b) there are always others that could do the other pieces better.
Does this focus help us get good at what we do? I should like to think so. However, there is another valid point of view that we must consider. When we do work on assignments and we go to work on the marketing piece, we realise that there are elements of the solution that will require change of staff, or training or even some technology inputs. It is also possible that the business needs funding or improvement in costs/ quality. We know things are not going to work if we don’t have these other pieces addressed.
The way we’ve addressed this thus far is to suggest other consultants that can help out with these other pieces. We have had some wonderful, collaborative arrangements with many other consultants. When it all works, it makes music! We do land up referring Ad and PR agencies a lot; we have also brought in recruitment experts, HR consultants, people that work on shaping culture, i-bankers, lawyers, event managers, QA experts, IT consultants, solution providers and others as well.
So we do think getting in others who are good at what they do, that may be different from what we do, is a good way to resolving this. Again, this is our way but it is not the only one. I’d love to hear some other points of view on this.