Metamorphosis of Decision Management Process

There are numerous players in the market providing consulting services that mainly focus on solving company’s problems and help the senior executives to take optimal decisions. These consulting services within the Decision Management space fall in one of three categories:

1. Analytics Consulting
2. Market Research Consulting
3. Management Consulting

There was a time when Consulting mean Management Consulting. Consultants were heavily paid individual from MC companies like Mckinsey and BCG. Companies and big Business groups often called them and asked to their suggestions.

But Consulting was not that alone. Fair Isaac has been providing Analytics based Consulting services for the last 50 years and they have helped companies grow in their own way. Analytics Consultant helped business managers to understand the existing operations, the pros and cons of the decisions made etc.

The third too existed, Market Research Consulting. This is somewhere between the first two. This is about knowing Market and competitors, and planning ahead to catch the opportunity that Market throws. TNS and AC Nielson are the major players in this area.

All three have existed and done well. They did not compete but worked together to help companies grow. But they never talk with each other. This has created a huge problem for the long term prospects of the company.

Every company waits for the issue to come and then call for the decision management service. There is however no sustainable solution. And each time one issue gets over, another problem is awaited.

If a sustainable solution is to be found, it needs to be started right from knowing the existing business scenario with good MIS Reporting System. Even though most of the companies have good reporting system, it lacks efficiency. It is better to automate such services so that little time and manpower resources are wasted.

Next comes knowing the operations in a better way and identifying the major decision points. This follows replicating the profitable decisions and eliminating the unprofitable ones.

Once this phase is overcome, the stage is ready to understand the market and the competitors to come up with highly optimized decisions.

At the end, when everything is streamlined and understood. The forward looking thought needs to be formed with all the necessary information ready. This is the stage for calling the Management Consulting services.

Until this process is not implemented by the companies today. Every year they will face a new problem in their business and will have to call Management Consultants to find the escape route. And the Management Consultants go away with a huge fee showing companies a quick solution, which in itself is based on lack of actual information of the existing business.

Management Consulting May Not be the Right Answer!

Well, I was thinking to write this article for long and the day has finally come. After months of research, I could finally frame a thought.
There are many words used in the Market for almost similar concepts. Some of them I could find are:
1. Analytics Consulting
2. Management consulting
3. Strategy consulting
4. Market Research
5. Strategy Sciences
6. Business Analytics
7. Vertical Solutions Consulting
8. Predictive Sciences
9. Decision Management

Many of these terms are used in similar way at the sole discretion of the user. Anyone can use a term to put his story forward.

Here are some definitions from Wikipedia.
-- Business Analytics is a term that describes how organizations gather and interpret data in order to make better business decisions and to optimize business processes.
-- Management consulting refers to both the industry, and the practice of, helping organizations improve their performance, primarily through the thorough analysis of existing business problems and development of plans for improvement.
-- Market research is the process of systematically gathering, recording and analyzing data and information about customers, competitors and the market. Its uses include to help create a business plan, launch a new product or service, fine tune existing products and services, and expand into new markets.
-- Enterprise Decision Management, commonly abbreviated "EDM", entails all aspects of managing automated decision design and deployment that an organization uses to manage its interactions with customers, employees and suppliers.
-- Strategic management is the art and science of formulating, implementing and evaluating cross-functional decisions that will enable an organization to achieve its objectives.
-- The term business intelligence (BI) dates to 1958. It refers to technologies, applications, and practices for the collection, integration, analysis, and presentation of business information and also sometimes to the information itself.
-- Other terms are still not available on Wiki.

In a typical scenario all these concepts should be talking and helping each other, as all these concepts are slightly over-lapping in functions and fully on goal achievement. All of these work to help run business smooth and catch available opportunities that market throws.

What I find interesting is, they hardly talk. All functions independently except there are some stances of companies going beyond their boundary and asking help from others. I remember one, Mackinsey Co. has started their Data Analytics center in India which is known by the name Mackinsey Knowledge Center.

Beyond this, there are stances of Analytics Companies going forward and helping clients to form Strategy with a separate exercise called the "Strategy Sciences".

My questions are:
Is this the correct way to do? Are these concepts being used correctly by the companies?

My take is NO. Companies become over aggressive and sometimes fail. Thanks to bad strategy. The stances of fail may be --
1. Ford buying Land Rover and Jaguar.
2. Current sub-Prime Mortgage crisis in US.
3. Harley Davidson coming up with no sound bike and failing.
4. Coke's new formula, that almost killed Coke brand.

All of these failures in different ways, but inside the reasons were same. The cause being, Management Decisions taken by following by gut feel without knowing the underlying realities.
Probably all of these decisions were suggested from the Management Consultants and the consultants might have given the best possible suggestion based on the availability of information to them. Problem: Lack of information!

Behind these failures, the reasons could be:
1. Weak Sales Force
2. Lack of proper Marketing Effort
3. Poor Infrastructure to support the decision
4. Non availability of Experts
5. Improper pricing
.................. there could be many.

There is no short cut to success and companies have to understand this. If they have to grow in a proper way, vision and ideas, and the execution of those ideas is necessary. But equally is to know the basics of the company and the market of the industry it is in.
Probably a good Market Research, Analysis of operations, Good Customer Segmentation and a good Pricing Model could have saved these failures.

The customers are humans and they need to be treated in a different way. I would say in a special way. The Rational Thought sometimes fail as they don't connect to the customers. The answer is simply to have some emotional factor into it.

Once again, my favorite picture about Management Consulting, Analytics Consulting and Market Research Consulting. Lets go with it.
I recommend a Rule for less probability of failure:
1. Know your operations first (make good MIS System) and streamline the process
2. Your your strengths and weaknesses; know your past operations, current customers and their behavior (Analytics)
3. Know the Market and the Competitors; know also the choice of current customers in the market (Market Research)
4. Explore what can be done and show your gut feel (Strategy Planning and Management)
5. Go to the Market with full force (Proper Execution) -- and back to 1.

Business is after all its all about taking risk, but in place of more risk its better to take the Calculated One.

Consulting Space -- Fight is on!

Job: Consultant
Problem: Lost in the Jungle
To be done: Find a way to reach a city

There was a time when Consulting mean Management Consulting. Consultants were heavily paid individual from MC companies like Mckinsey and BCG. Companies and big Business groups often called them and asked to their suggestions.

But Consulting was not that alone. Fair Isaac has been providing Analytics based Consulting services for the last 50 years and they have helped companies grow in their own way. Analytics Consultant helped business managers to understand the existing operations, the pros and cons of the decisions made etc.

The third too existed, Market Research Consulting. This is some where between the first two. This is about knowing Market and planning ahead to catch the opportunity that Market throws. TNS and AC Nielson are the major players in this area.

All three have existed and done well. They did not compete but worked together to help companies grow. But they never talk with each other.

Let us take a case where there were three consultants, one each from the above mentioned three areas, and they are given the problem. The report would be something like this:

1. Management Consultant
It looks like there is a way forward. Every such pave leads to a road and when the road is followed, you land up in a city. Go ahead and you will reach a city.

2. Analytics Consultant
You have so far traveled some X kms. Whenever you have walked a road, you have reached a town; Whenever you have traveled a lane, it has ended in a jungle; whenever you have moved through the jungle, you have ended in a river etc. You have reached here by crossing a river and the other side of the river was having a road. You might have to get back to the other side of the river and follow the road, that may take you to the city.

3. Market Research Consultant
There are three lanes, two rivers and twenty different types of trees, and there are twenty other parties in the jungle who are going to the city. Two are following a narrow lane and rest are going from the jungle. Now you decide, what you want to do.

The Winners: Management Consultant
Reason: They were confident and strongly proposed a action.

The group decided to follow what the Management consultant said, and now they are walking down the lane ........ Today they reached a road and are thankful to the Consultant ...... reached a town and are taking the dinner ..... next morning they again started the journey but the Group finds no way to pass the town as the other side of the town is the Indian Ocean.

Next Problem: Lost in a Town
Solution: Find a New Consultant

................. and the journey goes on!!