When Does It Actually Make Sense to Hire a Strategy Consultant?

I am going to try to answer this question honestly, which means acknowledging upfront that there are situations where hiring a strategy consultant is not the right answer. The cases where outside help adds genuine value are specific. The cases where it does not are also specific. Knowing the difference will save you money and, more importantly, time.

When outside help genuinely adds value ¶

The clearest case for bringing in an outside adviser is when the problem requires a perspective that nobody inside the organisation can provide without compromising their position. A leadership team trying to evaluate its own strategy is like a surgeon operating on themselves: technically possible, but not advisable. The outside perspective is most valuable not because the consultant is smarter than the people inside the business, but because they are not subject to the same political pressures, the same history, or the same blind spots.

When the problem is capacity, not perspective ¶

Sometimes an organisation does not need an outside perspective. It needs someone to do the analytical work that the internal team does not have time to do. That is a legitimate use of consulting resource, but it is worth being clear that this is what you are buying. You are buying capacity, not insight. The deliverable in this case is a piece of work, not a point of view. Both are valid. Confusing them leads to disappointment on both sides.

When a consultant will not help ¶

There are two situations where hiring a consultant is unlikely to produce value. The first is when the leadership team already knows what it needs to do but is looking for external validation to make a difficult decision easier to defend. A consultant can provide that validation, but it is an expensive way to buy cover. The second is when the organisation does not have the appetite to act on what the consultant finds. A diagnosis is only useful if the patient is willing to take the medicine.

Questions worth asking before you engage anyone ¶

Before commissioning any consulting work, it is worth asking: what decision will this work enable us to make that we cannot make now? If you cannot answer that question clearly, the scope of the work is probably not well defined. It is also worth asking: who inside the organisation will own the implementation of whatever recommendations come out of this? If there is no clear owner, the recommendations will not be implemented, regardless of their quality.

The best consulting engagements are the ones where the client has thought carefully about what they need before the first conversation. If you are trying to work out whether outside help is the right answer for your current situation, the questions we hear most often covers some of the common scenarios in more detail.