Advicetap Blog

Today’s guest post was written by Aarni Heiskanen of AE Partners in Helsinki Metropolitan Area, Finland. Aarni is a seasoned management consultant and today he shares with you a tip that if you take action on can become very profitable to your business.

You have the SWOT analysis, the Boston matrix and many more tools freely available at your disposal. Why would you want to develop consulting tools of your own?

The reason why my colleagues and I have developed new consulting tools has been straightforward. We have discovered – or gradually developed – a new consulting approach for client projects. The cause has most often been a client’s need or problem that has made us adopt a novel approach. Once the project has been completed we have analysed the developed tool to see if it could be applicable elsewhere.

A tool, in our case, is a process or way of structuring, analysing, and presenting information. It does not have to be “new to the world” but “new to the client or industry”.

How it all Started
Back in the 1990s I was involved in a project, which assessed the business value of IT in the construction industry. During the project we needed a simple method for measuring the maturity level of IT implementation and its business benefits. We created a framework called an IT Value Barometer. It was basically a set of 12 self-assessment sheets and three graphical representations of the data gained. (….More)

It’s really great to see more members getting involved on Advicetap.

What I’m even more excited about is that there are already members that have connected and are looking at opportunities to collaborate with each other on projects. That’s awesome!

Consulting Tools
Advicetap member Aarni Heiskanen also shared a great article on taking your consulting knowledge and turning it into tools you can offer to your clients. This is a concept I feel far more consultants should be looking at. Great stuff Aarni!

Working Hard
We’re working hard to release some big updates. We’ve had a few tech issues come up, but we’ve pushed forward, taken care of a good chunk of them, and are almost there! Yes!!

Hope you’re having a great week. It’s definitely a cold one where I’m at. That said, our members below the equator have been telling me about the hard core heat they’ve been experiencing!

More to come soon…