Consulting Sourcing Process, who does what?

Key Takeaways

Consulting Sourcing is a team play. As a rule of thumb, the business lines will bring their business and their understanding of the problem, while the procurement team will make sure the process is compliant with the Company policies and best practices.

The business owners are the ones to brief the consultants. They are the ones who knew better what the need is, what the objective, and what the context [are]. And they’re the ones that are the best to make sure that all consultants are on board and understand very well what are the outcomes that they expect.

Business lines will assess the proposal from a business standpoint. They will challenge the consultant on their expertise and their approach.

A very important phase for the project it’s where the business line will define the needs, articulate the context and the problem to solve, and explain what outcomes they expect from that project.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to episode 16 of a podcast, smart consulting sourcing. The podcast about consulting procurement.

My name is Helene and I’ll be your host today.

Each week I’ll give you the keys to better use, manage and source consulting services. This week I will explain who does what in the consulting sourcing process?

Last week, I discussed about demand management and how to implement it to the consulting category.

We saw that collaboration is key to making demand management work. But more broadly it is key to making consulting sourcing work.

In order to launch a consulting project, you will need to put together several skills and experience that are usually spread out over several departments.

High-level process of consulting sourcing

So, if we look at a high-level process for sourcing consulting, you will see three phases.

• The first phase is to identify the scope and the budget for your project.
• Second phase is to identify the shortlist of providers and brief them.
• And the third step is to review the proposal and make the decision about who you want to work with.

So, as a rule of thumb, the business line focus on the content of the proposal and the project, and the objective while the procurement will make sure that the sourcing process is respected. But what does that mean exactly?

Who does what in consulting sourcing?

So, let’s have a look at who does what between procurement and the business lines for those three phases.

So, let’s look at the scoping phase.

This is a very important phase for the project it’s where the business line will define the needs, articulate the context and the problem to solve, and explain what outcomes they expect from that project.

While procurement role is to challenge and reformulate those needs in order to really write an RFP that makes sense for both client and potential provider. And of course, the business lines are the ones to validate the RFP.

Let’s now look at phase two, shortlisting and briefing.

So the business lines are the ones that will define the criteria and the priorities in order for the procurement to source the consultants.

Based on those criteria, right, they can also propose potential providers. They will decide on the shortlist and share the objectives with the selected consultants.

The business owners are the ones to brief the consultants. They are the ones who knew better what the need is, what the objective, and what the context [are]. And they’re the ones that are the best to make sure that all consultants are on board and understand very well what are the outcomes that they expect.

And of course, procurement will be the ones sourcing the consultant, contacting them, making sure they have the right abilities and skills to answer that specific project.

They will check the eligibility of the potential providers. They will organize the bid, they will organize the meetings, and check the references.

During phase 3 and proposal analysis and decision.

Business lines will assess the proposal from a business standpoint. They will challenge the consultant on their expertise and their approach.

While procurement will assess the proposal from a procurement standpoint. They will challenge the team composition and the price. And they’ll be the ones leading the negotiations. So, now we have in mind a little bit who does what, right?

Roles in Consulting sourcing

So, let’s dive a bit more into the different roles that we’ll see.

Project Sponsor

The first role that I wanted to present is the project sponsor.

That person is often a manager an executive and they’re in charge, they are accountable for the project They are there to make sure the project delivers and they are here to champion the project within the organization. They also chair the steering committee

And the project sponsor usually owns the project.

Project Manager

Another extremely important role is the project manager. It is the person in charge of the daily advancement of the project.

The project manager is there to make sure the consultants work in the right conditions with the teams and deliver the results in time and quality. The project manager is often part of the project sponsor team and usually directly impacted by the project.

Procurement Leader

We have also the procurement leader. So unless the project is really small or with only one possible provider for a sequel, for instance, you should see a representative of the procurement department. The procurement leader is here to guarantee that the process is handled in compliance with the company policies.

And last but not least the main stakeholders.

So, we saw that the project sponsor and the project manager are often on the same team but sometimes the project can impact significantly other teams either directly, or through interfaces.

And you really want them to embrace the project and the results of the project. So it’s good to have them on board early.

So you see sourcing consultant is a matter of collaboration between business lines and procurement but also between the different business lines themselves.

And since a consulting project can have a significant impact beyond the initial scope, it’s always good to anticipate and onboard the many stakeholders to ensure alignment and acceptance.

Well, that’s it for today. Next time we’ll look at how the consulting industry is evolving.

In the meantime, if you have any questions and want to learn more about what we do at Consulting Quest, just send me an email at helene.laffitte@consultingquest.com

Bye-bye and see you next week! Au revoir!

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