Assessing the Effectiveness of Business Consulting in Operations Development | Constance Siaflas
The purpose of this paper is to address the question of the effectiveness of business consultants in operations development projects. Constance Siaflas is good knowledge of business consultants. It does this by analyzing the results of collaboration between a multinational firm and business consultants who applied the theory of constraints to a series of development projects.
Evaluating the effectiveness of consulting
The effectiveness of a business consultancy should be assessed for at least three reasons:
(1) To validate consulting as a business tool: Because consulting is only one of many actions that an organization can take to improve its performance and profitability, consulting must be formally compared with alternative business tools.
(2) To justify the costs incurred in consulting: Thorough quantitative justification of the costs of consulting are required to resist cuts in consulting budgets in times of economic stringency.
(3) To improve the design of consulting: Objective evaluation of consulting programs is required to ensure that business consultancy is continuously improved to provide better value and increased benefits to clients.
Theory of constraints
The empirical study reported in this paper assessed the effectiveness of a consulting intervention that utilized the methodology of the “theory of constraints” (TOC). The TOC is a complex management philosophy that aims to achieve business improvement by focusing on the constraints that prevent a system from achieving a higher level of performance. According to the TOC, every firm has at least one such constraint, which Goldratt defined as any factor that limits the system from doing more of what it was designed to accomplish. The TOC philosophy thus encourages managers to:
identify what is preventing them from moving towards their goals.
find solutions to overcome this limitation
Methodology
Data
Quantitative information collection methods are based on mathematical calculations in various formats. Methods of quantitative data collection and analysis include questionnaires with closed-ended questions, methods of correlation and regression, mean, mode and median, and others.
Analysis
The analysis methodology information is organized by analytical function. The analysis methodology information gives you both in-depth knowledge and best practices for: Applying data separation system functionality. Applying internal data analysis techniques within a function.