【英语生活】咨询顾问与企业客户

In the popular view, management consultants are mysterious individuals who speak a strange language, supported by elaborate PowerPoint demonstrations packed with two-by- two matrices and other over- complicated graphics.It is a nice legend, but also misleading and increasingly out of date. The consulting profession has been through several business cycles. It is a mature industry. There are few first-time buyers of consultancy ready to be bamboozled by lavish audio-visual presentations.

There is another reason why corporate clients are much less likely to be “taken in” by whizz-bang consultancy speak. There has been two-way traffic between corporations and consulting firms for some time. Both are populated by individuals with similar backgrounds: university graduates who have picked up an MBA and plunged straight into the commercial world, whether on the client or the consulting side.

The relationship between clients and consultants is shifting, with significant consequences for both. They may sit on opposite sides of the table, but an outsider might struggle at first to spot which is which. The language, attitudes and style of both are converging.

Before joining Bain as a partner in its financial services team, John Ott was global head of strategy and mergers and acquisitions at Barclays Bank. His career has leapt from consultancy to the corporate world and back again. He sees the client/consultant relationship as something that works best when there is a shared understanding of the business problem to be solved – something that is easier to achieve when colleagues are speaking the same commercial language.

“We like it when clients push us hard, and we push them hard too,” he says. “Working together should be an experience that helps develop thinking on both sides.” When clients have worked out what they want to achieve but are open to new ideas, there is a much greater chance of a successful outcome, Mr Ott says. In this way, clients will be thinking more like consultants, while good consultants are able to put themselves into the shoes of their clients.

Tom Graham recently joined KPMG management assurance services after 10 years working in finance with Land Rover, the carmaker. The transition from an in-house role to that of consultant has been smooth.

“It's not quite the big jump you might imagine,” he says. “It's been a natural extension to the career path. Now I'm in a service business and not manufacturing, but attitudes here and on the client side are very similar: it's all about outputs and doing a quality job. It all comes back to good project management in the end.”

Two-way traffic between businesses and consulting firms is not new. As Chris McKenna, reader at Sa?d Business School in Oxford and author of The World's Newest Profession: Management Consulting in the 20th Century, points out, Tom Kearney (later to found AT Kearney) worked in a Chicago meat-packing company before becoming James McKinsey's first partner in his consulting firm in 1929. McKinsey himself left the firm and went back into business at Marshall Field's, the department store that had been one of McKinsey's clients. Marvin Bower, the great force behind McKinsey's growth, was an advocate of the MBA partly because this new qualification provided an alternative source of potential recruits, allowing him to hire people who had not worked in business before.

There is a kind of synergy between consultants and clients that can, in the best sense of the word, be exploited by both. Even though consultancy firms usually have a clause in the contract prohibiting clients from poaching any of the consultants who are working with them, in practice this can happen at any time.

“We don't always like it, but I suppose we should see it as a compliment,” says the head of one consulting firm. This cross- fertilisation also firmly embeds former colleagues in the client firm, making them a likely future user of that consultancy's services.

There is always the chance that a consultancy can lose talented staff for other reasons. Jonathan Schwartz, Sun Microsystems' chief executive and a former McKinsey consultant, was underwhelmed by some of things he saw going on within client organisations. “I remember meeting people and thinking: ‘Hold on, I can do this better than they can,' ” he recently told BusinessWeek magazine. He did not remain a consultant for very long.

The traditional differences between life inside a business and a consultancy are also breaking down. Consultancy once meant travel and long hours, compared with a more comfortable and predictable life in-house. The global era has eroded the distinction: corporate life is no longer sedentary or steady state.

So what differences persist? Kerry Le Van, also at KPMG after working for British Gas for five years, says that life in consulting can be a little more intense, if only for limited periods. “When you work in industry all the demands on you are coming from the same source – your colleagues,” she says. “You may be able to balance these demands out a bit. As a consultant, you can be on call to clients all the time.”

On the other hand, that variety of work is one of the attractions that draws some managers into the consulting world in the first place. While a corporate career might throw up a series of familiar problems, every client will present its own unique challenge.

Those who make the switch to consultancy after working for an unusual employer can bring a rare perspective to their new job. Nick Ellett had a 12-year career in the Royal Air Force, piloting Chinook helicopters, before joining PA Consulting, where he is now a partner for defence sector clients.

He has an intimate knowledge of his clients' products and services. “I might tell them: ‘I can see why you are marketing this product in this way, but the fact is no one is going to use it like that.' ”

Consultants and clients are no longer staring at each other in bewilderment from opposite sides of the table. They understand each other's priorities better.

Whether this always leads to better results is another question. But at least “mutual incomprehension” can no longer be offered as an excuse for failure.

人们普遍认为，管理咨询顾问是一类讲着陌生语言的神秘群体，其辅助工具是制作精美的PPT幻灯片，里面充斥着2X2矩阵及其它过于复杂的图表。这种说法听上去不错，但同时也具有误导性，并越来越过时。咨询业已经历了数轮商业周期，是一个成熟的产业。很少有初次购买咨询服务的客户会被泛滥的音视频演示迷惑住。

企业客户被咨询顾问的高谈阔论“唬住”的几率之所以大大降低，还存在另一个原因。一段时间以来，企业与咨询公司之间存在着双向交流。两个行业的员工均有类似背景：获得MBA学位的大学毕业生，直接投身商界，无论是在客户方，还是在咨询公司方都是如此。

客户与咨询顾问的关系正发生改变，这对双方均产生了重要影响。他们可能会坐在会议桌的两端，但乍看起来，外行人或许很难分辨出谁是客户，谁是咨询顾问。他们的语言、看法和风格都正在融合。

在加入贝恩(Bain)出任其金融服务团队合伙人之前，约翰•奥特(John Ott)曾担任巴克莱银行(Barclays Bank)的投资策略及并购业务全球主管。他的职业生涯始自咨询业，然后跳槽到企业，最后又回到咨询业。他认为，当客户与咨询顾问对亟待解决的企业问题有着共同认识时，双方的关系最为融洽——当同事之间讲着相同的商业语言时，就更容易实现这一目标。

“我们喜欢客户对我们施加压力，而我们也对他们加压，”他表示。“合作应该是一种体验，有助于开拓双方的思维。”奥特表示，当客户已得出他们希望实现的目标、但同时又愿意接受新想法时，双方合作取得成果的几率要大得多。这样一来，客户的思维方式会更加像咨询顾问，而优秀的咨询顾问也能设身处地为其客户着想。

汤姆•格雷厄姆(Tom Graham)在汽车制造商路虎(Land Rover)财务部门供职10年后，最近加入了毕马威(KPMG)的管理保证服务部门。他从企业人员变为咨询顾问的角色转换非常顺利。

“这并不像你想象的那样是一次很大的跳跃，”他表示，“而是职业发展道路的自然延伸。现在我进入了服务业，而不是制造业，但咨询公司和客户方的看法非常类似：都是与产出和提供高质量工作有关。到最后又都回到完善的项目管理上。”

企业与咨询公司之间的双向交流并非新生事物。牛津大学赛德商学院(Sa?d Business School)高级讲师克里斯•麦肯纳(Chris McKenna)著有《世界上最新的职业：20世纪的管理咨询业》(The World's Newest Profession: Management Consulting in the 20th Century)一书。他指出，汤姆•卡尼(Tom Kearney)——他后来创建了AT科尔尼(AT Kearney)——在1929年成为詹姆斯•麦肯锡(James McKinsey)创办的咨询公司首位合伙人之前，曾在芝加哥一家肉类包装企业工作。麦肯锡本人后来离开了这家咨询公司，重返企业界，加入麦肯锡(McKinsey)的客户——百货公司Marshall Field's。作为推动麦肯锡发展的巨大力量，马文•鲍尔(Marvin Bower)主张招聘MBA，一定程度上是因为这种新资格认证提供了另一个潜在招聘途径，让他可以招募到以前从未在企业工作过的人才。

这是咨询顾问与客户之间的一种协同优势，完全根据字面意思理解，这种优势可以被双方都加以利用。即便咨询公司通常会在合同条款中规定，禁止客户从自己那里挖角，但实际上这种情况在任何时候都可能发生。

某家咨询公司的主管表示：“我们并不总喜欢这种事发生，但我认为我们应该将它视为一种褒扬。”这种互惠做法也使咨询公司曾经的雇员渗透进客户企业中，使他们今后很可能成为使用咨询公司服务的人。

咨询公司因为其它原因而造成人才流失的可能性总是存在。Sun Microsystems首席执行官乔纳森•施瓦兹(Jonathan Schwartz)曾是麦肯锡的咨询顾问。他在客户企业里看到的一些事打消了他的热情。他最近向《商业周刊》杂志(BusinessWeek)表示：“我记得遇到别人时我心里会想：‘等一下，我可以比他们做得更好。'”他的咨询顾问工作没有持续很长时间。

企业与咨询业生活的传统界线也在逐渐被打破。咨询公司曾经意味着出差和长时间工作，而企业工作则更加舒适，生活作息也在掌握之中。全球化时代已逐渐抹杀这种差别：企业生活不再舒适和稳定。

那么，二者之间依然存在什么区别呢？凯丽•勒•范(Kerry Le Van)在英国天然气公司(British Gas)工作了5年，然后也进入毕马威。她表示，咨询行业的生活可能略微更加紧张，只不过在有限的阶段而已。“当你在企业工作时，对你的所有要求都出自同一个来源——你的同事，”她表示。“你可以平衡这些要求。作为咨询顾问，你对客户要随时待命。”

另一方面，工作的多样性是吸引一些经理人投身咨询业的首要因素之一。企业工作可能抛给你一系列你很熟悉的问题，但在咨询业中，每位客户都会抛出独特的难题。

那些曾为不寻常雇主效力之后转投咨询公司的人，可以给他们的新工作带来宝贵的视角。尼克•埃利特(Nick Ellett)曾为英国皇家空军效力12年，驾驶奇努克(Chinook)直升机，然后他加盟PA Consulting公司，如今他是负责防务行业客户的合伙人。

他非常熟悉其客户的产品和服务。“我会告诉他们：‘我可以理解你们为什么以这种方式来推销产品，但事实上没有人会这样用。'”

咨询顾问与客户不再坐在会议桌的两端茫然对视。他们对彼此的当务之急有更好的理解。

这是否总会带来更好的结果，则是另一个问题。但至少“相互缺乏了解”不能再作为失败的借口了。

译者/刘彦