Consulting and guidance

What is a consulting and guidance mandate?

The goal of a consulting and guidance mandate is to provide answers to a specific problem or difficulty. In our case, it can be on technological aspects as well as human aspects.

There are two main parts, which can be separated:
- the consulting part, which consists of a thorough analysis of the context and the issue, as well as the formulation of recommendations;
- the guidance part, which consists of providing support for the implementation of the recommendations formulated in the previous step.

To illustrate these two approaches, let's take an example from everyday life: imagine that you encounter difficulty in how you cook and organize yourself in the kitchen at home. To answer this:
- The consulting part: ask a chef to analyze our situation to suggest more suitable cooking recipes that would meet the same needs.
- The guidance part: be assisted by the chef in the realization of these recipes, to learn and to be sure that it will be a success.

Who is it for?

For any company, executive or manager who has to make an important and strategic decision and who would like an external viewpoint to provide a detailed analysis and relevant recommendations.

Why use the services of a consulting company? What are the benefits?

Generally speaking, whatever the topic, calling on an external party always helps us to see the situation from another angle. This outside perspective is essential to be able to analyze the situation correctly. Indeed, when we analyze our own problems, we are naturally biased and this prevents us from seeing alternative solutions.

By choosing a consulting company such as ours, you are assured of two main elements:

• The past experiences: to advise well, it is important to have experienced many different issues, in different technological contexts and different business sectors. With more than 15 years of experience, we are confident in our ability to analyze your situation and make appropriate recommendations.
• The methodology: conducting a consulting mandate is not a simple discussion over a cup of coffee. It involves interviews, workshops, feedback from our observations, and the writing of a report that will be given to you at the end of the mandate. This methodology is one of the success factors of the mandates we perform, and we are proud of the quality of the deliverables we provide.

How does a consulting mandate work?

To begin with, it is essential to meet with you the first time so that you can explain the problem you are facing. The objective for us is to understand the level of urgency and your expectations.

After this first step, a commercial proposal will follow, detailing the scope of the intervention, the operating mode, and the rates.

Once the commercial proposal is accepted, the mandate can begin. In general, the consulting mandate begins with interviews of the various people involved, in order to properly assess the situation. Depending on the context, we can also conduct workshops that will help us understand the different tools and processes involved.

Following these observations, we will write a document which will be handed to you and which will gather all the observations and the various recommendations, prioritized depending on the effort required and the expected impact.

Finally, these observations and recommendations will be presented to you orally, to make sure everyone is aligned and to answer any questions.

Following the presentation, the written document can be updated one last time based on the questions/answers that were shared during the presentation.

What is the guidance phase?

The guidance phase consists of assisting you in the implementation of the various recommendations that were made during the consulting phase.

It is possible that you do not need any assistance in implementing the recommendations, which is why this phase is optional.

In case we guide you, it is possible to adapt our presence according to the expected level of assistance: it can be from a few hours per month to several days per week.

How long is this type of mandate?

On average, the duration of a consulting mandate will vary between 1 and 3 months depending on the context and the scope of the issue.

Regarding the guidance phase, the duration can vary from a few weeks to several months, depending on the complexity and the number of recommendations to implement. Also, our presence with you may vary according to the level of assistance defined and can be done in a degressive way (start with several days per week and gradually decrease to a few hours per month).

How much does it cost?

Since each mandate is unique, the rates may vary from one mandate to another. Nevertheless, the main parameters that will have an impact on the rates of a consulting mandate are the number of people involved, the context, and the scope of the issue. Indeed, the more people involved or the broader the issue, the longer the observation and analysis phase will be, and the more complex the recommendation formulation phase will be.

The cost of a guidance mandate varies according to the level of assistance chosen.

Do you have examples of consulting mandates?

Of course. Here are some examples of questions you might have, and on which we have already conducted consulting mandates:

• You want to significantly upgrade your website and you don't know if it is better to modify the existing website with its constraints or if it would be simpler to develop a brand new website adapted to your new requirements,
• You store a lot of digital data and you would like to structure it to get the most out of it, but you don't know how to proceed,
• You have tools and data stored in your company and you are hesitating to make the switch to cloud services to reduce your infrastructure costs,
• You want to make your software or website responsive on cell phones and tablets and you would like to know the feasibility,
• You want to shift to a digital platform and gain online customers in addition to your physical ones and you don't know where to start,
• You want to know how to aggregate or consolidate your online presence, in order to have a better ranking on search engines and to be able to provide a single and simple entry point to your customers,
• You store data and would like to ensure that your customers' personal information are secured according to the state of the art,
• You want to analyze the quality level of an existing software or website.

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