Leveraging Partnerships: The Value of Consulting Firms

Higher education institutions face myriad challenges that require proven and innovative solutions. Consulting firms can be invaluable partners for higher education leaders, offering expertise, resources, and strategic insights to help leaders navigate the complexities of today's rapidly evolving educational landscape.

In this article, four consultants from different firms explore the value of engaging consulting firms in higher education. We provide specific recommendations to help higher education leaders maximize the success and value of engaging with consultants, whether they are new to these partnerships or have worked with consultants for years.

Understanding What a Consulting Firm Does

Consulting firms provide expert guidance and specialized knowledge on a wide range of higher education projects and topics. This article will focus on firms specializing in technology and administrative advisory services. These firms employ professionals with extensive experience to help institutions address specific challenges and opportunities. Consulting firms offer a fresh perspective, objective analysis, and tailored solutions to enhance operations, streamline processes, and improve service delivery.

Deciding When to Hire a Consulting Firm

Partnering with a consulting firm offers several specific benefits:

• Efficiency and effectiveness. Consulting firms can provide both breadth and depth of expertise in specific topics. Your institution may only encounter a certain type of project or challenge every few years, but consulting firms engage with many projects related to the needs of all types of institution every year. They understand how to work efficiently to identify potential solutions and help you determine which path is best for your institution.
• Tailored engagements. Because consulting firms work with institutions of all sizes and types, they can recommend a partnership approach that best meets the unique needs of your institution, drawing on their knowledge of approaches that have proven effective at similar institutions.
• Additional capacity. At a time when many higher education institutions and IT organizations must do more with less, engaging with a consulting firm can help advance key strategic priorities while staff members remain focused on service delivery.

Following are some scenarios that indicate it might be time to engage a consulting firm:

• Your institution has limited in-house expertise for a particular initiative or to address a specific need by a specific time.
• You would benefit from an objective, third-party perspective or broad knowledge of how peer institutions are addressing a specific need or opportunity.
• Your institution faces complex challenges that require specialized expertise.
• You have a sense of where the institution or IT organization needs to go but would benefit from a third party to validate or refine your perspective. 
• You need additional capacity to implement significant changes.
• You need to enhance your team's time. The most frequently cited reason clients engage with us is availability. CIOs and their teams often need to augment their leadership capabilities by adding capacity, and hiring trusted partners to lead or support strategic initiatives is an efficient way to advance the priorities of the IT organization without deprioritizing other efforts.

Finding and Selecting a Firm

Finding the right consulting firm involves careful consideration but does not need to be an all-consuming endeavor. Here are some great places to begin:

• Seek recommendations from peers in your network.
• Ask peers about their experiences addressing similar challenges. EDUCAUSE Community Groups are a great place to start.
• Ask colleagues and team members which partners the institution has worked with successfully if you are new to your institution.

Evaluating consulting firms varies according to procurement requirements. Following are some general recommendations:

• Ask peers for additional information about the firms they recommend. What was the partnership like? What worked well? What could have been better?
• Look at collaborative organizations and consortia that have already conducted competitive bids and negotiated contracts that colleges and universities can directly buy from (such as The HESS Consortium, Edge, E&I Cooperative Services, and CollegeBuys, among others).
• Seek evidence of expertise. Does the consulting firm publish or speak regularly about the topics you need assistance with?
• Ask consulting firms for references and summaries of similar past projects. Ask what went well and what might have gone better on those projects.
• Conduct interviews and ask to meet the people you would be working with. Ask questions not only about deliverables and timelines but also about how the firm works and how the consultants approach the type of engagement you are seeking.
• Evaluate how well the firm has addressed your specific needs. Describe the outcomes you're seeking and ask for perspective on how to get there. What resonates? Does the proposal reflect your institution and your need or opportunity, or does it appear to be an "off-the-shelf" solution applied to many requests?

Making the Most of Your Partnership

Effective collaboration with a consulting firm requires clear communication and well-defined expectations.

• Spend time defining what you need and want from an engagement before you seek proposals. Again, focus on the desired outcomes rather than a prescriptive approach. Consider deliverables, timelines, constraints, and specific requirements, and communicate those clearly to potential partners.
• Determine how you want to work with a partner. Do you want to meet frequently and collaborate on the effort, or are you seeking someone to collect information and deliver a final product? Are elements such as staff member development and knowledge transfer important to you?
• Communicate your expectations clearly to consulting firms from the earliest possible moment before proposal development so that potential partners can propose solutions scoped specifically to meet your needs.
• Once your project begins, meet regularly to review project plans, status against timelines and budgets, responsibilities, deliverables, success criteria, and risks. Celebrate progress and wins along the way.
• Do not hesitate to ask any questions you have before, during, or after the engagement.

Building a strong, cooperative relationship ensures that the consulting firm understands the goals of your institution and can deliver the desired outcomes and pivot if your needs change.

Handling a Consulting Engagement That Is Not Going Well

If the consulting engagement is not meeting your expectations, addressing concerns as soon as they arise is crucial.

• Schedule a meeting with the consulting team to discuss the issues and identify potential solutions. Do this immediately upon recognizing the warning signs of the engagement going wrong.
• Review the initial agreement and ensure both parties are adhering to the outlined responsibilities.
• Ask for specific consultants assigned to your engagement to be replaced if they are not performing as expected. Often, difficulty with individual consultants may be a matter of style rather than competence.

Always elevate any concerns you have during the engagement as quickly as possible. The consultant's goal is for you to be thrilled with the partnership, so it is essential to tell the partner if you have any concerns so they are addressed quickly. It's much easier to put out a spark than a fire.

Closing Out the Engagement

When the engagement ends, consultants aim to work collaboratively to ensure a smooth transition of all knowledge and documentation to your team:

• Ensure that you have received and approved all deliverables and other documentation.
• Make sure you have a clear understanding from the consulting team about what you should do with the work to date. What should happen next as an outcome of the engagement?
• If appropriate, arrange specific knowledge-transfer sessions to equip your internal team with the necessary skills and information to continue the work. If you expect knowledge transfer, put it into the contract.
• Evaluate the outcomes of the engagement and identify areas for improvement that can be applied to future collaborations. Consultants will seek feedback on the quality of their work and what can be improved in the future. Like you, consultants want to learn and grow. Feedback is a valuable gift!

Though engagements end, a good partnership can result in lifelong connections. Do not hesitate to reach out to the partner for follow-up. Your network of trusted advisers should grow as a result of the engagement. Most consultants love to keep in touch, stay up-to-date on how your institution is progressing, and provide informal advice and support.

Maximizing Your Investment

A partnership with a consultant is a strategic investment that institutions can use to make the most of their resources. Following are a few tips to maximize the value of your partnership investment:

• Clearly define your goals and objectives at the beginning of the engagement and regularly review progress. Think expansively and creatively about how a partner might assist you when defining the project; you can always narrow the scope during the proposal process as you determine the project plan and pricing. For example, would a report help address your needs, or would an executive presentation and communication plan be more helpful?
• Actively participate in the consulting process and maintain open lines of communication. Elevate any concerns as they arise and ask for a conversation if you would like to alter or add to the scope of the engagement.
• Leverage the expertise of the consulting firm to build internal capabilities. If knowledge transfer and team development are important components of the partnership, ask for that explicitly in the proposal and evaluate proposals according to that goal.
• After the engagement, continue to implement and refine the engagement outcomes to achieve long-term benefits. And keep in touch! Consultants want to know what successes you are having and what challenges you are encountering to help them refine their offerings for future clients. 

Consulting firms offer a combination of expert knowledge, strategic insights, and practical solutions that are vital for navigating the complexities of modern higher education institutions. As institutions evolve and adapt to new challenges, consulting firms will remain valuable allies in supporting IT organizations and advancing institutional goals.

Disclosure

A first draft of this article was created by ChatGPT-4 using the transcript of the authors' EDUCAUSE July 18, 2024, webinar Leveraging the Power of Consultancies in Higher Ed. The authors reviewed and substantively edited the initial output for accuracy, concision, and style.

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Shannon Dunn is Director of Strategic Team Operations at Vantage Consulting Group.

Jonathan Krasnov is Managing Director, Education & Research at Huron.

Charlie Moran is Chief Executive Officer at Moran Technology Consulting.

Joseph Moreau is Executive Consultant at Higher Digital, Inc.