For consulting firms: winning engagements, delivering them on budget and getting paid, and what the software underneath has to do at each step.
9 min read
A consulting engagement crosses seven handovers between first conversation and paid invoice, and most firms run each one in a different tool. Here is what one system has to cover, the questions to ask any vendor, and the mistakes firms make when they consolidate.
A client portal can end the weekly status email, or it can show a client your internal notes. What a consultancy’s clients should see, what they should not, the grey areas to decide per engagement, and the questions to ask before you choose a portal.
Partners ask three questions every week. Are we busy, are we on budget, are we making money? Here is what each number means, a worked example of how a fixed-fee engagement loses margin quietly, and what to track so you see it in week four rather than at month end.
A sales CRM is built for transactions that end at “closed won”. Consulting runs on engagements that start there. What a consultancy should look for in a CRM, a demo script that tests the handover from sale to delivery, and the questions to put to any vendor.
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