ask the expert
Ask the Expert Zarina Naqvi, Managing Director of management consultancy, Maxima Associates, tells Sarah Dale how the services of a consultant assist the growth of businesses.
Taking on a consultant means you are paying for the expertise for a temporary period to get you through a specific issue. I take a 360 degree look at your business and analyse it objectively in a way that you as the business owner cannot do. Crucially, as a Chartered Management Consultant, I have the accreditations and qualifications which mean I can analyse a problem, make recommendations, and provide solutions, permanently improving a client’s organisation and creating an atmosphere of continuous improvement, ethically. What a business does not want is an unqualified consultant stretching up to deal with a problem, it is important that your consultant is experienced beyond the job. It is better to bring a consultant in who has the expertise, the contacts, the wisdom, and the personality. The cost of employing someone full time at that level would be expensive and unnecessary but a short, sharp burst to regularly support the company, is a value for money way to problem-solve and add growth. I work with clients to provide that expert ear. Being outside the company and working with many different sectors and different working practices, means I can innovate and deliver by adding A +B + C from elsewhere and creating something new. I can objectively analyse what you and your business do, and I can be ambitious for your goals. I can show clients how to diversify and continue in a way that enables continuous growth without me. It is key to understand where a company started and where they are now. I seek to understand the owner and be realistic about what can be achieved and what they want to achieve. For me, it is important to leave a legacy, so I stay with clients to help them with the process and empower staff and management to facilitate permanent change. I do not create expensive reports that are impossible to implement.
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Having regular contact with clients, once or twice a month, provides a discipline and framework to hit milestones. I guide the process using a combination of mentoring, knowledge transfer, problem solving and more. I am also called a consultant’s consultant. I work in consultants’ businesses and with professional consultants. Having a Chartered Management Consultant Award is a great framework to work around. Some people leave their jobs and set up as a consultant without the framework to be as successful as they could be. I help them move away from feeling uncomfortable professionally to becoming accredited and professional, able to run a reputable business. I rarely speak to a business that does not want to change and all businesses are surprised by what we find. My early career was in corporate finance which is a powerful place to come from. Most people don’t really understand accounting and bluff it. They have their annual accounts prepared by their external accountant and think that is the job done, so when I speak to them, they are stunned at what they don’t know, for example, which products/services are the most popular and most profitable. I am working with a scientific instruments manufacturer, for example, and they didn’t know their breakage rate - a small thing? It is actually a significant KPI in that business. Accounting is not just about preping your annual records but looking at what happened last week and what may happen tomorrow. Consulting is an ethical profession and that really matters to me. Seeing the light come on in a client’s eyes when they grasp something I’ve explained is what drives me. I love to see a client, staff and their businesses thrive.
I am also called a consultant’s consultant. I work in consultants’ businesses and with professional consultants. Having a Chartered Management Consultant Award is a great framework to work around. Some people leave their jobs and set up as a consultant without the framework to be as successful as they could be.”
