Why Hiring External Consultants Is the New Corporate Trend?

By Sthitaprajnya Panigrahi Monday, 21 September 2020

The consultants hold knowledge and proficiency over the recent market drifts and can effectively guide the companies to steer through the various market fluctuations. They not only identify the problems but also suggest the necessary actions to be initiated by the company successfully acting as a catalyst for organizational development.

Many companies prefer to train and create a group of talented professionals to work as internal consultants within the company to foster innovation and keep the various divisions in perfect alignment. However, as a recent trend, the corporate sector is witnessing a stiff rise in the demand of external consultants for various reasons including a broader business perspective, experience, and a complete focus on consultancy roles to derive better outcomes. Enriched with experiences by working with many large clients, these external consultancy firms can choose the best professional from their talent pool to work for the company as per the suitability of the project. This criterion cannot be applied in the case of internal consultants as their experience and expertise will be limited in comparison with the external consultants.

To know more about the benefits assured by the external consultants in the corporate sector, the below-mentioned points can be of assistance.

  1. Competitive Advantage: External consultants tend to work with many larger organizations across the globe, which gives them an upper-hand over the current trends of consultancies. This factor is absent in the case of internal consultants who only have limited experience and very little industry exposure. Thus external consultants can ensure the industry best practices as per the requirement.
  2. Access to Expert Opinion as and when required: Another advantage of hiring external consultants lies in accessing the opinions of industrial experts whenever required. These industry experts work in collaboration with the leading consultancy firms and have the ability to guide the company through any sticky situations.
  3. Cost-Effective: Hiring external consultants are like long term investments which grant a lot of financial relaxation. With no need to provide them with benefits, computers and even workspace, the consultants can be retired after the completion of projects. By paying the external consultants as per their services, the company saves the expenses of rewarding them with salaries every month. As they can be hired and retired as per the necessity, it saves a great deal of expensive and exhausting process for the company from recruiting, training, and maintaining the internal consultants.
  4. Independence: The internal consultants or the permanent employees might be affected by internal politics which can vary their judgment while handling a project. Whereas the external consultants work independently, remain unbiased from any personal connection with the organization. They only focus and work upon the decided goal by the client without any internal interruptions.
  5. Focused on their Job: Unlike the internal consultants, the external groups of consultants have no other jobs to handle for the company, which encourages them to concentrate more on the specific project. Since they are not responsible and answerable for any other projects and assignments going on with the company, they focus on their assigned project, by keeping the operations lean and efficient.

With growing competition across the industry, the companies should remain open to the various options available in the market and choose accordingly. With a lot of advantages, the external consultancy firms bring a lot of possibilities on board such as expertise, experience, proficiency, along with new and innovative skills to handle the possible challenges of the market.

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