If you are contemplating retaining the services of a business consultant, you are doing so for two likely reasons. One, you are a new business owner who simply needs guidance in ensuring you have not forgotten anything during the set-up process. Or two, you know your business has some issues but you either cannot fully identify them or know how to properly address them.
Whether to hire a consultant is an important decision because services can be costly. However, the right professional will ultimately save you money in the long run, thanks to their fresh perspective. They can help you identify cost cutting measures, streamline operations, establish an online presence, devise smarter advertising and promotions, re-write procedures and even negotiate better rates with your vendors. There are multiple situations that might present themselves which would prompt you to hire a consulting professional.
Long-term Plans
Do you have long-term plans but do not have the funds to invest in a full time employee? A business consultant can be a smart move because you can capitalise on their special skills and expertise without the long-term investment of paying out payroll taxes and benefits like insurance or retirement plans. Once the project is over, they move on.
Short-term Goals and Problems
A consulting professional can help you with short-term problems such as temporary bad press, perhaps from a lawsuit or accident on-site. They can also help you in temporary gigs such as advertising and promotions for a new product launch or expanding your services. If you anticipate business moves such as building another location or buying out the competition, start the interview process to hire a consultant in advance so you can be ready and prepared when events happen.
Identifying Problems That Are Not Apparent
Sometimes, you are simply too close to a problem to correctly identify its source. You can look to production issues, customer service or even vendor relations but what if the heart of the problem is none of those things? A consulting professional can help you get to the core of the problem as well as outline steps that can remedy the situation.
Perhaps, as the business owner, you know exactly what the problem is but you simply do not have the resources to adequately address them. The services of a contract professional are the solution. They may also have the connections in the industry and local community to utilise that come from years of experience.
Knowing when to ask for help is the first step to business recovery or growth. Because each business consultant may have certain specialisations, you will want to carefully look to find the best fit, not only for your work ethic but also for the specific problem at hand.
Life sciences consulting is beginning to catch on in the technologically complex and highly regulated area of biopharmaceutical manufacturing. The reason is that many previous attempts at implementing lean manufacturing techniques in this industry have generally been “superficial” and have, consequently, produced “only limited benefits.” With qualified consultants, however, the story can have a different ending.
In an October 2009 article, “Harvesting the Benefits of LEAN in Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing” (BioPharm International 22.10), Thibaud S. Stoll and Jean-Francois Guilland explain: “LEAN has… been implemented in many manufacturing industries, where it has triggered major transformations. However, LEAN has often brought only limited benefits. The first reason is that LEAN often has been implemented in a superficial manner, with a focus on ‘just-in-time’ objectives only, without being understood as an entire system that must permeate an organization’s culture.” And there’s the key: an organization-wide buy-in and subsequent cultural shift.
Pharmaceutical consultants have the job, then, of fostering a “process-oriented organization… to ensure optimal support of LEAN and the development of a culture of continuous improvement.” Stoll and Guilland propose a unique way for consultants to go about this during the preliminary assessment and analysis stages of a Lean implementation.
They propose, after the quantitative objectives have been set, the use of what they call a “blue sky vision.” What this involves is getting the team to envision the how the process would look freed of any limitations or constraints, that is, “the ideal efficiency level.” To arrive at this blue-sky vision, all “regulatory, technological, organizational, economic,” and “safety-related” constraints are simply set aside. And, then, “only the constraints which cannot be realistically eliminated within the timeframe of the project are carefully added back.” The result is what Stoll and Guilland call the “practical vision”-the vision that consultants and management together use to determine the situation-specific Lean objectives and precise steps to be taken.
Stoll and Guilland maintain that this approach usually results in more “ambitious” Lean target objectives and a more robust implementation, often with “dramatic improvements.” “This approach,” according to Stoll and Guilland, “has two main advantages over a traditional stepwise optimization process, where incremental improvements are made sequentially in different areas (e.g., technical, operational, organizational) or activities (e.g., manufacturing steps).” The first advantage is that improvements generally come about sooner and are more marked because everyone is operating from a “clear vision of the end-stage.” Second, this approach often provides a way around the resistance of team members. They are involved from the very beginning and have already made “the mental journey of going first to the ideal and theoretical situation.”
Further, with respect to life sciences consulting in Lean implementation efforts, Stoll and Guilland are firm in insisting that it is “not just about manufacturing,” that the same consulting approach can be applied to, for example, the supply chain and technical development as well. They explain that Lean’s “philosophy and principles can, and should, be applied to other business areas, to improve processes and teamwork by eliminating bureaucracy and silo thinking.” Still, they caution that a successful Lean implementation “should not be a one-time project” and should be “executed in several steps” in order to develop a sustainable “culture of continuous improvement.”
Engendering and sustaining that “culture of continuous improvement” is where qualified pharmaceutical consultants, steeped in all aspects life sciences consulting, can prove to be a great boon, especially in biopharmaceutical manufacturing.
We help Pharmaceutical companies gain the competitive edge they need to be the market leaders in pharmaceutical and medical device products.
For any lab be it in a hospital, a blood bank or in a analysis group there are several overhead costs associated using the operate with the laboratory. As investing on high stop devices is critical, efforts to save large expenditures generally are futile.
Folks working from the lab are also crucial for that continuous functioning with the lab consequently a single place in which a chunk of the expenditure might be saved is in lab maintenance. A medical lab advisor can be a professional who is not on rolls and however the lab management has an opportunity to use his expertise and encounter to your upgrade the lab.
A consultant has several roles to play inside a lab. He is responsible for conducting on-site inspections. His skills are essential to assess the compliance standing with the lab with the state and federal tips.
He’s the a single who’s mostly responsible to see that logistics with the lab adhere for the exact requirements of the lab and that the lab merchants necessary components devoid of going out of stock in situations of emergencies. In quick, a medical lab consultant has to handle a number of the most crucial elements of your lab setup.
Because the obligation is large and also the price related may not fit to the lab’s price range keeping the consultant on rolls of the company can prove to become an incredibly high-priced affair. Recognizing this will need, some advisor companies give consultancy solutions on undertaking basis.
This can be purely will need based and consequently like a lab supervisor you are able to avail professional services with out obtaining to invest heavily within the companies. Usually a clinical lab advisor who’s pretty new for the discipline possesses expertise in just one place but consultants of some of the reputed advisor businesses are relatively educated to manage any place inside the purview of clinical laboratory providers.
If you are working a lab you’d wish to rent a person with thorough capabilities as in the bigger scheme of points this can result in considerable savings. Experience is also an attribute that issues a lot in relation to hiring a medical lab consultant. This attribute usually translates to far better management of emergency situations and taking proactive measures to maintain the lab running smoothly.
There are numerous advisor organizations that have a group of experienced lab consultants and you may quickly avail their providers by contacting them online or by going to their workplace.
Consultants tend to get a lot of work from word of mouth referrals, but taking time to build up an online presence can add to your credibility and expert status. Even if you get a strong referral from someone you know, your prospective client will no doubt look you up online to review your Internet trail of breadcrumbs, so to speak. While you may already have considered build a presence through a website, taking the time to list your consulting business elsewhere online can help your street credibility.
5 reasons to list your consultant business online
1. Show that you’re more than just your website. When you appear in search engines – whether under your own name, business name or for keywords – it shows you’ve been around and that you’re active.
2. Draw credibility from your associations and affiliations. When prospective clients see that you’re active in trade and professional associations or even discussion forums, it shows that you take an interest in your work, that you connect with others and that perhaps others even endorse you.
3. Push down unfavourable search engine results. Perhaps you’ve made some discussion forum, blog or other posts over the years and you no longer want those to show up. While you can ask those sites to remove the content, it’s sometimes easier to push up content you do like and that you can craft to meet your current goals and standards.
4. Improve your website’s search engine standing. Google and other search engines look at what sites link to your own site and use those results in determining where to rank your site in results. If you get a link from a site with a positive and relevant Google PageRank, it can improve your own site’s ranking.
5. Generate leads. When you choose to list your consulting business with a reputable directory, website or even forum, you give people a chance to click through to your site. If the originating site is relevant to what you do, this can be a great way to create targeted traffic to your site. Moreover, your listing on the previous site helps to improve your credibility, too.
Your online marketing strategy should include more than just your website. Review your goals and options carefully and determine the best options for getting your consultant business listed and marketed.