-
 Business
development services are invisible products, and it is not easy
to judge their quality as we do with other goods. When we select
BDS suppliers, we can only make a judgment on their quality of
services based on the reputation of the firm and the
presentation made by the consultants. The need for services on
the part of Vietnamese firms is quite significant. In our case,
we have been using various consulting services including factory
layout design, construction monitoring, legal advice for our
trademark, auditing, financial services and HR consulting. To be
very honest, however, we have yet to be fully satisfied by any
of the services we have contracted. Take the auditing consultant
as an example – we expected that their "management letter"
(advice to the company's management) would make concrete
recommendations on management issues, not just identify the
accounting and bookkeeping issues that we had. Another example
occurred with a well-known intellectual property legal
consulting firm that we used. This company did not act
professionally when dealing with conflict of interest issues
among their clients.
One reason for the low quality of consulting services is the
lack of professional training and experience among Vietnamese
consulting firms. Many local consulting firms were founded by
individuals who previously worked for foreign consulting firms
based in Vietnam; as consultants, they often specialized in one
or two areas. Now these individuals are running consulting
companies that offer full services, but often they lack the
expertise to do so. As a result, they cannot ensure the overall
quality of a consulting project from project kick-off through
implementation, monitoring and completion. Furthermore, in one
of our experiences, the understanding about the scope of work
was different between our company and the consultants, and thus
we were not fully comfortable with the results at the end of the
project. Consultants often do not pay attention to after-sales
service – they just go after short-term profits for each
project. Perhaps they have forgotten that in this special
services sector, it is important to satisfy the client because
client satisfaction is the best marketing tool for a consulting
firm.
In general, I think that consultants are not up to date with the
development of the business sector. Consultants should improve
their capacity both in terms of professional knowledge and
business delivery to keep up with foreign consulting firms. They
should have longer-term business visions and live up to high
business standards and ethics. Only by doing so will this sector
be able grow to meet the increasing demand from businesses.
Ms. La My Hoan, Chief Executive Officer, Tien Hung Joint Stock
Company.
-
When businesses
reach a certain level of growth, more management systems-related
problems develop that are beyond their capacity to solve. In
this case, the use of consulting services is a necessary and
efficient solution. Even in cases where businesses may have the
expertise to resolve the problems by themselves, they usually
are driven by day-to-day business activities that are geared
towards more short-term profit and may not necessarily be well
positioned to carry out the needed changes. Furthermore,
independent outside consultants have a more objective approach
to solutions which are not biased by the internal politics of
the business.
Taking our company, which has about 1,500 staff as an example,
we have been using human resources consultants to develop a
staff handbook, job descriptions, and company policy, as well as
executive search services for key management positions,
including foreign staff. In general, we are happy with the
quality of these services. However, a very common shortcoming of
consultants is that they normally do not fully understand, and
then take into account, the need of a business to ensure
uninterrupted operations while implementing the consultants'
suggestions. In addition, as there could often be a number of
options to resolve the same business issue, the consultants need
to understand their clients very well to recommend the best
solution.
Mr. Le Le Tuan, HR and Administration Manager,
AA Design and Construction Corporation.
>> More...
|
