Seeking an expert's opinion may be one of the smartest moves that a person can make, especially where their business is concerned. That line of thinking is just what makes the business of consulting such a marketable commodity.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics consulting is the fifth fastest growing industry in the economy. Projections show that between 2004 and 2014, wage and salary employment in the management, scientific, and technical consulting services industry is expected to grow by 60 percent, which is much faster than the 14 percent growth projected for all industries.

A recent IDC study, offering a five-year forecast of the business consulting industry, shows an increasing focus and innovation for services providers, as well as greater user spending. The study experts say they expect business-consulting spending to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 3.9% from 2005 to 2010. The spending increases will vary from region to region internationally, with the slowest growth in the Americas and the fastest in Asia/Pacific. However, during the forecast period the Americas will be the location of more than half of all global business consulting spending, and will be the “principal geographic driver of dynamics in this market”.

Computer Task Group provides IT consulting services to mid and top tier level companies. Experts at the 40-year old business offer tailor-made advice and solutions such as determining what type of software is the best fit.

For instance, one of the company’s clients is one of the country’s largest snack manufacturers. The group supplies the company's warehouses with a hi-tech computer system and software that “knows” which pallets are to be loaded on to which trucks and even has the capability to alert a driver of which of the 200 or so facilities he needs to make a pick up or make a delivery.

The company’s principal consultant at the Melbourne office, Tom Crutcher said they built that system from scratch, however a pre-packaged version with similar capabilities can set a company back between $150,000 and $200,000 per warehouse. Not an investment to sneeze at for sure, however given the amount of product being shipped, it can translate into a huge savings and increased productivity.

“A company like that (the snack manufacturer) probably ships a billion cases of potato chips a year,” Crutcher said. “If they can save five percent (of their shipping costs) you’re talking about some real money.”

Consulting solutions are not just for the biggest players and are not always such a costly venture. Travis Proctor, president of Artemis International Technologies headquartered in Melbourne, said he provides services to companies as small as a home-based business with one to two employees.

Proctor said he offers an IT infrastructure to businesses that may not have the capital or the need to create their own. For example, Artemis’s “Virtual Office” product allows a company to have access to a variety of phone system options similar to having a PBX.

“They get a big business feel without having to pay a lot for it,” said Proctor.

A company can decide when they need Proctor’s services based on, as he put it “the ebb and flow” of their productivity.

“They can have whatever expertise they need when they need it,” he said. “Some of them only use us when the sky is falling.”

Sometimes even large-scale companies ready and willing to take an expensive IT plunge may find that it is an unnecessary expanse. Bob Seemer, the director of Electronic Training Solutions, a Cocoa Village technology-based training and consulting company is a samurai soldier when it comes to cutting through red tape. Seemer said a break down in communication is often the culprit.

“Typically companies will throw money at a broken process so they can do the work faster,” he said. “Many times you won't need to invest in technology to fix the process.”

That was just the case when Florida's Department of Education Services called on red tape warrior to help decipher what to do about the more than 7,000 new teacher applications that were backlogged, waiting for approval. The department is required to approve or disapprove an application within 90 days after receiving it; however the average turn around time was at 113 days. In addition, the department was also prepared to spend 1.7 million in fiscal year 2004 capital to upgrade their computer systems to address the problem.

“They would have been able to process more applications (with upgraded computers), but they still would have been poorly handled,” Seemer said. “Too often managers look at a new computer system as a solution rather than look at the way work is done. My job is to find the waste.”

Seemer said he and his team were able to identify and fix a communication issue between the department and law enforcement to have applicants’ mandatory background checks completed much faster. They also transferred the application process to an online venue that would not allow incomplete submissions.

The changes Seemer made to the department's process dropped their costs from $70 to $43 per applicant. This saved them 1.2 million in operational expenses based on the 60,000 applications they handled in 2003. Applications for 2006 are expected to top 80,000, which will mean 1.6 million savings. In addition, they are now being processed, on average, within three days of submission.

For the private sector, Seemer has helped banks and other financial institutions shape up their application processes. He was able to increase Merrill Lynch’s jumbo loan sector's profitably through staff training and changing marketing department strategies. After Seemer was through, the company’s jumbo loan approval rate went from 32 percent to 70 percent.
For more information, visit Computer Task Group at www.ctg.com, Artemis International Technologies at www.artemisit.com, Electronic Training Solutions at www.etsfl.com and IDC at www.idc.com.