IMCI-Delhi-20th-ABCeMag-010210.161214915

de-limiting excellence
Institute
of
Management
Consultants
of
India,
Delhi
Dear Readers
Greetings of the season!
January 16-31,
2010
Wisdom
•The work begins
here.
•Simple Works.
•Get out of the way.
•Change hurts. Risk
as you expect others
to risk.
•Create context.
•Seed hope.
•Persevere.
•Find the client in
yourself.
•You are your best
intervention.
Geoffrey Bellman
Despite the occasional international hiccups, new
hopes for the business look prominent. Time for
consultants to tighten their belts.
We have been overwhelmed with the response on
recent articles by Dr. M B Athreya and Mr. Sharu
Rangnekar. We look forward to many such articles
in our subsequent issues from seniors across the
domain of Academia, Business and Consulting.
We also thank different members of ICMCI for
regularly sending us their feedback full of
encouraging words.
Alag Tewar, Alag Flavour continues with
international blending.
Cheers,
Rajiv Khurana,
CMC, FIMC
Chairman
IMCI Delhi
Making the most out of Consulting
in Business
Tips for Consultants
in this issue…
LIFT quotes; CDC Advt.
About IMCI & Code of Ethics
2-4
5-7
8
9
Misc.
10
Certified Management Consultant TM
T h e i n t ernational credentials of a
professional management consultant,
reciprocally recognised by global members
of the International Council Of Management
C o n s u l t i n g I n s t i t u t e s [ I C M C I ]
imcidelhi@gmail.com, www.imcidelhi.com
http://sites.google.com/site/imcidelhi,
http://twitter.com/imcidelhi

de-limiting excellence
Institute
of
Management
Consultants
of
India,
Delhi
January 16-31,
2010
2/10
Alag Tewar,
Alag Flavour
Making the most
out of Consulting
in Business
S A Khader
A productivity &
competitiveness
consultant and a
consultant
trainer, with lifetime
association
with indian
productivity
movement
Indian entrepreneurs and managers have come of
age and started shredding the thinking that they
are the know-alls and end-alls as far as their
business concerned and relying more and more
on the services of professionals and specialists as
technical and management consultants to
compete in the fast changing market environment.
A new breed of consultants and consulting
organizations too has mushroomed ever since the
on-set of globalization of our economy, even
attracting best of names in global consultancies,
due to the ever expanding billions of managementconsulting
business. In contrast to the developed
west and Japan, both the stakeholders of Indian
consulting sector have not developed sufficient
maturity to derive full benefits of these knowledge
based services. There have been many instances
of clients not getting the value-for-money as per
their expectations and equal number of situations,
where consultants were unhappy with the clientrelationships
and pre-mature withdrawals. In this
context, it has become imperative on the part of
clients and consultants to have a re-thinking on
‘Making the most of Consulting in Business.’
This paper attempts to put forth a few ideas as to
how consultants and clients can optimize their
returns from services to clients and also using the
knowledge based services most effectively by
clients.
Client’s Perspective
While the basic purpose of engaging consultants
centers on bringing new competence for more
objective decision making through the impartial
assessment of real situation, consulting
interventions do help managers to learn and
enhance their competencies. Clients should focus
on selecting the right kind of specialist-consultants
that add value and be complementary to the
internal skills and this should also result in
considerable learning by internal teams so as to
pursue similar exercises in future. This also
presupposes, the client system develops
confidence in the capability of the consultant and
subjects itself to whole-hearted participative
consulting intervention (on the lines of process
consulting).

de-limiting excellence
Institute
of
Management
Consultants
of
India,
Delhi
January 16-31,
2010
3/10
A consultancy is an intensive professional help on a temporary basis,
the internal management has to be very serious in extracting the best
and most from the consultant-team. The practice of having a full time
internal coordination team consisting of suitable positions to share &
support the intervention would be essential for getting the most from the
consultants. Further, without attempting to influence the consultants
thinking, the management should allow consultants to study situation
analytically and provide an impartial outside point of view with
benchmarking with the best-in-class practices. A free-wheeling
thinking by the consultant team would be of immense value before
considering the internal constraints for implementation. It is normal for
enterprise managements, some times, to engage consultants to justify
the decisions taken already (or to betaken); hence, it is more prudent
that consultant is allowed to assess the situation objectively and the
management should be prepared to revise its thinking in case, it is
found necessary by the facts presented by the consultants. For getting
the most from consultants, the senior or top management should do
enough to educate and prepare the internal management and
employee-groups about the need to engage consultants to get more
specialized knowledge and know-how to tackle the emerging business
situations. It is further necessary to emphasize all those concerned the
importance of their whole-hearted cooperation and participation in the
interactions, apart from providing creative inputs in the idea
generations. In practice, it is found about 75% of failures of consulting
interventions (non-implementation) are attributed to in-adequate
preparation by the internal management.
Consultant’s Perspective
A consulting activity provides an opportunity of Life Long Learning for
a consultant and at the same time creates a challenging environment of
solving client’s problems by putting to test their innovative abilities and
also tapping the creative potentials of the client’s personnel. There is a
great thrill in consulting due to the shear variety of problems handled
during the life-span of a knowledge-based worker & every client is anew
learning environment. While reasonable returns in terms of consulting
fee are essential for survival and growth, these finer developmental
facets should overweigh in the philosophy and professional practice
by consultants in terms of pricing the services. At the same, the
consultant and client have to realize, that there is mutual learning and
education on the part of both the parties and the consultant should take
pride in the fact that he is educating and developing the client’s
personnel & its systems by transferring the latest knowledge, which in
itself a noble contribution.
Alag Tewar,
Alag Flavour

de-limiting excellence
Institute
of
Management
Consultants
of
India,
Delhi
January 16-31,
2010
Consultants acting as a bridge between
researchers and practitioners of management, have
unique opportunity to translate theory into practice
and develop suitable models of problem solving
and add to the new knowledge for the benefit of
man-kind; for instance, McKenzie’s 7-S model,
BCG’s Product matrix, Porter’s Competitiveness
Diamond, just to name a few. The theory &
practice of management is built around the work of
consultants around the globe. There is always a
possibility of such inspiring price-less contributions
by consultants which cannot be compared with any
monetary value. Further, consultants do play a
yeoman role in maintaining high standards of ethics
in practice of management through their own
behavior as per their professional code and also
educate and advice the practicing managers to
adhere to a few basic tenets of managing people
and economy/trade (market). Such professional
approaches enhance the esteem of serious
practitioners of constancy and uplift them to the
levels of intellectualism.
Consultants being specialists in very narrow fields,
do develop generic skills of understanding and
assimilating the interdisciplinary and holistic
aspects of micro & macro-management of
business; without which they can not be worthy of
consulting profession. This broadens the horizon of
thinking of a professional management consultant
and as such he is referred as an ambi-vert, where
in a judicious mix of introvert & extrovert skills
prevail; so as to apply specialized research based
know-how to the practical field and at the same
time, successfully convincing & selling to the client
and his representatives the new ideas and new
technology as a marketing manager.
4/10
Alag Tewar,
Alag Flavour

de-limiting excellence
Institute
of
Management
Consultants
of
India,
Delhi
January 16-31,
2010
5/10
Alag Tewar,
Alag Flavour
Thank you,
Mark R.
Haas CMC, FIMC
Editor
Tips for
Consultants
and
President
Research and
Organization
Management,
Inc., USA
For your
concurrence to
print the tips in our
ABCeMag
regularly.
Every consultant says they can deliver great
results for their clients, and most of us claim
personalized service. How can a consultant
compete if everyone is using the same measures
of value?
Two ideas come to mind. First, there may be some
value to using the same measures as other
consultants, making it easier for your clients to
compare the value of your services "apples to
apples." If you say you are going to return X% on
investment (i.e., your fee), or you can reduce
personnel costs by Y%, at least you have something
quantitative and in terms by which a client would
evaluate other investments. The down side of this is
you may be rigorous or conservative in your
calculations but your competitors are not bound by
your standards. You have no way of knowing
whether your plausible 35% ROI will compare to your
competitor's 1000% ROI, based on entirely different
criteria.
Second, you are always better off casting your value
in as few terms as possible and in terms that target
your client's or prospect's point of pain. If sales
effectiveness is the problem, you might frame your
value as an increased sales close rate. However,
look closely at the presumed point of pain to find the
right benefit metric. If the presented pain is cycle
time, it might be that the real issue that matters to the
client is unit cost of produced goods, and cycle time
is only one part of the cost calculation. Frame your
solution metric in the same terms as the problem, not
just the symptom.
Tip: In addition to your chosen metric, I suggest
another one that is not always used: Speed to Value.
This is defined as how long before your results start
to appear. All managers are impatient about results.
Some may have waited too long before calling you.
Show them that, in addition to delivering on their
point of pain, your services will return results within
weeks, days or hours.
Institute of Management Consultants USA

de-limiting excellence
Institute
of
Management
Consultants
of
India,
Delhi
I had a reasonably successful and prosperous
year, although many of my consulting
colleagues were not so fortunate. What are
some ways I might help colleague who
struggled last year?
Management consulting can be an extremely
rewarding way to make a living. It can be a
challenging one as well. Although they might have
many success stories to share, an experienced
and accomplished consultant also knows times
when times were pretty tough and the outlook was
bleak (2002's consulting recession wasn't that long
ago). Many were able to transcend these
challenging periods through the assistance of
others. As IMC USA members, we often leverage
the assistance and expertise of our fellow
members in order to gain advice, knowledge and
insight, and build collaborative alliances.
Helping a fellow consultant in need can take many
forms: offering referrals, providing key
introductions, identifying an opportunity, sharing a
resource, assisting with a challenging task or even
simply offering to provide a meal, a sympathetic
ear, and some good advice.
January 16-31,
2010
Tip: Identify one or two fellow consulting
colleagues that have experienced a challenging
year and could use your help. How might you be
able to provide some needed assistance without
the risk of offending or embarrassing them? Your
offer to help may create a new relationship that
could benefit both of you.
6/10
Alag Tewar,
Alag Flavour

de-limiting excellence
Institute
of
Management
Consultants
of
India,
Delhi
January 16-31,
2010
7/10
What are some ways to get some leverage on my
time?
One way to get the leverage you are looking for is to use
others to do some "leg work" for you. Depending on
whether you are employed by a mid-sized to large form or
an independent consultant, you may have to contend with
two issues. The first is your attitude about your consulting
practice. If you are with a mid-sized to large firm, you'll
have less difficulty delegating and managing someone to
help you. By virtue of your choice of being an
independent consultant, however, you may have a harder
time letting go of your time and tasks to someone else,
even if intellectually you know it will leverage your time.
In either case, here's a model you can try. Hire a person
that can learn some of what you do, someone who is
bright but does not present him or herself her/himself as
the expert but rather as the assistant to the expert. Start
with diagnostic tasks, i.e., trying to figure out what the
problem is at the client or prospect. Prepare a well
thought out list of 37 questions that the research assistant
(or whatever appropriate title you might choose) can ask.
Send that person, instead of you, into a carefully defined
upfront relationship to gather the data, meet the people,
bring back files, reports, data, samples, etc. to save you
the same one day or so on site and the travel back and
forth. Then you do the analysis, the follow-up questions,
the recommendations, the next meeting, etc. Once you
have gotten this process worked out, documented the
steps, and developed trust on a person to leverage your
time on that task, you can move on to another task (or
expand your group of trusted assistants).
Tip: Hiring an assistant or a service is only one approach
to get leverage on your time. Of course, make sure both
the assistant and client/prospect are carefully prepared. It
is not worth trading your reputation just to leverage your
time.
Alag Tewar,
Alag Flavour

de-limiting excellence
Institute
of
Management
Consultants
of
India,
Delhi
Leaders will be those who
empower others…Empowering
leadership means bringing out
the energy and capabilities
people have and getting them to
work together in a way they
wouldn’t do otherwise. – Bill
Gates
Management is not
dictatorship. Top Management
of a company has to have the
ability to manage people by
leading them. – Akio Morita
January 16-31,
2010
A leader is a dealer in
hope.
– Napoleon Bonaparte
8/10
Leadership Ideas For Today
Alag Tewar,
Alag Flavour
Extracts from the gift book- LIFT,
pending print, by
- Rajiv Khurana, CMC, FIMC

de-limiting excellence
Institute
of
Management
Consultants
of
India,
Delhi
January 16-31,
2010
9/10
Alag Tewar,
Alag Flavour
ICMCI
The International Council of
Management Consulting Institutes
is the global association of national
management consulting institutes
from around the world. These
national institutes administer, in
accordance with world class
standards, the international "CMC"
certification Certified Management
Consultant earned by individual
professional management
consultants.
More details: icmci.org
IMCI
The Institute of Management Consultants
of India (IMCI) is the apex body of
management consulting professionals,
being the only registered institute of
established management consultancy
firms and practicing individuals in the
country.
Constituted in 1991, IMCI was formerly
known as the Management Consultants’
Association of India (MCAI), which was
founded in 1963.
In 1989, IMCI became the first Asian
organisation to be accepted for
membership of the International Council
of Management Consulting Institutes
(ICMCI), the global apex body of
Management Consulting Institutes. ICMCI
has 46 member countries in the world.
The Executive Secretariat of IMCI is
located in Mumbai. The Institute has
regional Chapters in Ahmedabad,
Bangalore, Calcutta, Chennai (Madras),
Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai (Bombay) and
Pune.
CMC Designation
IMCI endeavors to raise the standards of
management consulting by awarding
Certified Management Consultant (CMC)
designation to individual members who
have passed a qualifying examination
and have met the profession’s standards
of competence and ethics. The CMC
designation implies international
recognition to worldwide standards.
More details: imcindia.co.in
Code of
Professional
Conduct for
IMCI members
Minimum Guidelines
Confidentiality
A member will treat client information as
confidential and will not take personal advantage
of privileged information gathered during an
assignment, or enable others to do so.
Unrealistic Expectations
A member will refrain from encouraging unrealistic
expectations or promising clients that benefits are
certain from specific consulting services.
Commissions / Financial Interests
A member will neither accept commissions,
remuneration or other benefits from a third party
in connection with recommendations to a client
without the client’s knowledge and consent, nor
fail to disclose any financial interest in goods or
services which form part of such
recommendations.
Assignments
A member will only accept assignments for which
the member has the skill and knowledge to
perform.
Conflicting Assignments
A member will avoid acting simultaneously (in
potentially conflicting situations) without
informing all parties in advance that this is
intended.
Conferring with Clients
A member will ensure that before accepting any
engagement, a mutual understanding of the
objectives, scope, work plan and fee arrangements
is established and any personal, financial or other
interests which might influence the conduct of the
work are disclosed.
Recruiting
A member will refrain from inviting an employee of
a client to consider alternate employment without
prior discussion with the client.
Approach
A member will maintain a fully professional
approach in all dealings with clients, the general
public and fellow members.
Code of Professional Conduct
A member will ensure that other management
consultants carrying out work on the member’s
behalf are conversant with and abide by the Code
of Professional Conduct.

de-limiting excellence
Institute
of
Management
Consultants
of
India,
Delhi
Join group
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We await your
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support …
Imagine
Your name always on
Client’s lips!
What does it take to get it?
January 16-31,
2010
10/10
Alag Tewar,
Alag Flavour
Patron:
Dr. M.B.Athreya
Mentors:
Dr. S.R.Mohnot
Mr. Shashi Budhiraja
Dr. Sunil Abrol
Past Chairmen:
Mr. Ashok Kumar
Mr. Ramesh Tyagi
Chairman
Rajiv Khurana
Dy. Chairman
Sumit Chaudhuri
Hon. Secretary
Vijay Nagrani
Hon. Treasurer
M S Sridhar
Executive Members
S A Khader
S B Sengupta
Dr. Shiv Dhawan
Regional Rep.
S A Khader
IMCI – Delhi
imcidelhi@gmail.com
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