Consulting Jargon: Understanding Your Consultant
These are some of the most common and up-to-date consulting terms. If you learn what they mean, you will have a much easier time at work.
2X2 – This is not a piece of wood, but a consulting term used to describe two dimensions worth of data. In high school, you learned about the x and y axis on a grid, and 2X2 is representative of each.
Benchmark – This is basically a comparison term. Business is all about competition, and companies are constantly knowledgeable about what other companies in the same industry are doing. A Benchmark study involves taking a single factor (such as customer retention) and creating a graph to show how one company stacks up against another.
Business Design – When you first start a business, you create a business plan, which outlines the steps you plan to take in order to grow and nurture your business venture. A business design is similar, except that it is a present-tense explanation of how your business works, from productivity to client relations.
Case Interview – This is a “real-life scenario” interview in which a consultant explains how he or she would fix, handle and negotiate a particular problem with a business.
Change Management – Most business problems start with the employees because they are, after all, human. Changing management refers to the practice of reorganizing the officers and management of a company or corporation to better serve the needs of the business.
Convergence: In order to bring in more customers and to many more money, companies often combine services at a lower price for clients. For example, a media company might offer cable television, high-speed Internet access and telephone service as a group service. This is called convergence.
Core Competencies – This refers to the inherent strengths of a business, such as customer service or employee retention. The core competencies are often used to measure up against other aspects of the business that are not as successful.
Deliverables – In most cases, consultants will have a date upon which a project is due and a list of things that the consultant must deliver. This could be a graph, a spreadsheet, a business plan or any number of hard copy results. These are called deliverables.
Framework – This is the structure a consultant uses to look at and solve a particular problem. It can be simple or complicated, depending on the situation, and using a specified framework will make you look more professional.
Growth – Consultants approach a problem from one of two angles: growth or downsizing. Obviously, growth is the more positive, proactive term, and it has become a trend in the industry. Rather than downsizing to solve problems immediately, growth serves to give businesses positive outlooks for the future.
Implementation – All of the planning, structuring and framework in the world won’t make any difference unless the theories are implemented within the company. Consultants have taken a more active role in assisting business owners in implementing their suggestions, rather than just leaving them to figure it out on their own.
Operations – This can refer to any number of factors in the running of a business. For example, the manufacturing of products is an operation; hiring employees is an operation; talking with customers is an operation. This is how business models are broken down for consultants.
Outsourcing – This has become a more and more popular term for both consultants and freelancers. An outsourced professional is anyone who works as a contractor for a company, but not as an employee. In outsourcing professionals, businesses save money on salaries and benefits.
Pay-For-Performance – This is another popular term in consulting, and has become a cornerstone for the industry. Rather than paying consultants by the hour, employers pay by the work completed. This can be a per-project quote that the consultant delivers, or a commissioned pay based on success of work.
Virtual Office – This refers to any meeting or office location in which no professional has an actual desk. This could be a coffee shop where everyone meets to go over notes, a hotel room while traveling or the golf course.
