KNOWLEDGE REPOSITORY _

Useful information, hints

We created our knowledge base to provide our visitors with useful information and advice in the following areas of business life.

Consulting

Business Planning

Project Management

Controlling

Outsourcing

SSC/BSC industry

Change Management

Professional blog

Consulting in General

The development of business consulting as an activity can be traced back to the scientific management theories of the 18th century. While the management approach of scientific management spread both in Europe and the USA, the consulting industry developed stronger in the USA. One of the main reasons for this cultural difference was that in the USA it was generally accepted that management directing a given company, cannot be an expert in all professions.

For this reason, it was more accepted in the USA that companies would buy external expert opinions from the market to solve specific problems. In contrast, in Europe — where expectations for high professional standards and leaders’ prestige were stronger — the so-called “pater familias” model dominated, meaning that leaders were expected to understand everything related to the company’s operations. This difference gradually diminished with the rise of international trade, globalization, and the rapid flow of information.

Trends in recent years have shown that the industry is transforming. While initially accounting firms expanded further and further into consulting services, only large and broad-based consulting companies dominated the market. In recent years expectations drive towards more flexible and specialized consulting operations.

Most consulting firms operate in a matrix organization, where one dimension represents expertise (e.g., technology, management, sales, HR), while the other represents industries (e.g., trade, chemicals, IT). DLM Consulting has proven its expertise in many industries – from FMCG to automotive – and in addition to our financial consulting focus, we also support our clients with strong, practical experience in HR, production and sales, among others.

Business Administration Consulting in General

The rapid development of information technology in the early 1990s drew increasing attention to business processes and business administration systems. The concept first appeared in the Harvard Business Review in an article by Michael Hammer. The author called attention to the fact that managers’ primary task is not to simply automate existing work processes, but to eliminate unnecessary activities and redesign processes where necessary.

Accordingly, the manager’s task is to eliminate or minimize activities that do not add value for the customer and to maximize those that provide real value. The systematic analysis and transformation of operational processes is called BPR (Business Process Reengineering).

This idea was quickly adopted worldwide by management schools, consultants, and corporate leaders. Numerous articles, books, and studies have been written on the topic. Although, there is also a debate over the topic if BPR may turn enterprises inhumane and if it is the rebirth of Taylorism in modern times.

By the mid-1990s, 65% of Fortune 500 companies had already carried out process reengineering or planned such internal projects. After initial fears in the early 1990s, BPR became widely accepted, and today nearly every competitive company — as well as public sector institutions — successfully applies this methodology.

One of DLM Consulting's core area of expertise is financial and management consulting. Our success is based on a personalized approach and proven methodologies that we have successfully applied on numerous occasions in various industries.

The best performing organizations are constantly improving – whether it is technological innovation or process development. The most significant savings potential often lies in making key activities more efficient.

We would like to share the structure we use to conduct organizational, process and IT due diligence, and how we arrive at formulating development recommendations.

1. Preparation and data collection

As we often say: the key to a project’s success is proper preparation. Skipping planning or data collection can be costly in the long run. Every transformation initiative must be started with thorough preparation: jointly defining the exact scope of the review and collecting all available information – from existing process descriptions to reports and dashboards. It is often worth starting a questionnaire-based data collection in the impacted areas to get a more complete picture of the operation.

2. AS-IS assessment

Review all available documents and collected data in details, then conduct interviews with employees at different levels of the organization. Afterwards, consolidate and analyze all information, compare with industry benchmarks and best practices, to identify all relevant operational gaps.

3. Analysis and TO-BE design with development suggestions

The gaps and development opportunities should be summarized in a clear format, suitable for decision-making. It is recommended to categorize the proposals based on several criteria – for example, priority, expected impact or implementation time (short, medium, long-term developments). In the next step, the results should be agreed with the relevant business areas, and then the results of the analysis and development proposals should be presented to the management in an easy-to-understand format.

What does the company's management gain by engaging an external expert with this due diligence task?

As a result of the detailed review, decision-makers receive a clear and independent picture of how the organization's operations, process efficiency, and IT support can be improved - taking into account all relevant business impacts, based on international best practices. (An external expert typically progresses much faster than analyses organized with internal resources. This is simply due to many years of experience and undivided attention on the topic.)

4. Implementation plan

Once the leadership sets the strategic direction, the preparation of the detailed implementation plan begins. Here too, thorough planning remains critical: precise definition of resources, responsibilities, and scheduling are fundamental for a successful transformation project.