How do you choose a consultant to digitalise a manufacturing company?
The key question when choosing a consultant is whether they earn money from the recommendation or from the delivery. Someone who also sells the software they recommend has a conflict of interest, and it is difficult to separate their advice from their price list. The second criterion is whether they begin by asking about the company or by presenting technology. Ask directly whether the consultant receives commission from the suppliers they recommend.
Seven questions for the first meeting
1. Do you receive commission from the suppliers you recommend? An answer of 'yes, but it has no influence' means that it does have an influence. That is not necessarily disqualifying, but you need to know.
2. When will a specific technology first be discussed? If it happens in the first half hour, it is a sales pitch. If it happens only after the consultant understands how the company makes decisions, it is consulting.
3. Who in the company will you speak to? If the answer is only management, you will get the picture that management already has. The people in the operation have the real information about how work is done.
4. Can you tell me about a time when you advised a client to do nothing? A consultant who has never encountered this situation either lacks experience or has never recommended anything against their own interests.
5. What exactly will I receive as the output? Ask for a description of the output, not the activity. 'Process analysis' is not an output. 'A data flow map, a list of bottlenecks and a roadmap showing the sequence of steps' is an output.
6. What happens if I decide to continue with someone else? A good output is usable without its author. If the consultant cannot explain how another supplier would use their output, it is tied to them.
7. Which companies have you worked with, and may I call them? Relevant industry references matter more than quantity. Manufacturing has particular characteristics that do not carry over from other industries.
What to watch out for
- A specific product recommendation in the first meeting. No one can know what your company needs before getting to know it.
- A very long document as the output. Length takes the place of a decision. A useful output is short and decisive.
- Promises of percentage savings without knowing the company. A number quoted before the analysis is marketing.
- No option to buy the diagnostic work separately. If the first step is only available as part of a large project, it is not a diagnosis; it is a pre-sale exercise.
My approach
I do not sell software or licences and I receive no commission from any supplier. My entry service is the Digital Business Review for manufacturing companies. It is sold separately, and the output remains yours even if you carry out the implementation yourself or work with another supplier.
As for the seventh question and where my manufacturing experience comes from: I began in structural steel installation and worked my way up to become a partner in a machining division. I only moved into IT afterwards, where I led teams of programmers and served as CTO on Odoo ERP implementations for manufacturing and warehousing companies. Digitalisation consultants have usually travelled in the opposite direction.
Feel free to put all seven questions above to me.