How Do Consulting Firms Operate?

A consulting agency or consulting firm is a company whose employees possess expert knowledge in specific business processes and are ready to provide this to clients for a collective or fixed fee. Additionally, many specialized experts work here, capable of providing both general management and specialized consulting services.
A consulting firm can serve everyone (referred to as external or independent) or work with a limited number of clients. In the latter case, such firms are called internal because they are mainly structural divisions of any company or group of companies.
The process of collaboration between a consulting firm and a client company consists of the following work stages:
The first stage is introduction and preparation. During this time, client representatives discuss the goals and issues they want to solve with the help of consulting. Often, they fill out a briefing, and representatives of the consulting company give a presentation about their capabilities and advantages.
After a preliminary meeting, experts and clients sign a contract detailing the list of services, the responsibilities of both parties, the terms of work, conditions for early termination of the contract, and other nuances.
In the third stage, experts from the consulting firm collect and analyze data about the client company and its business processes. This helps them identify existing problems and find ways to solve them.
The fourth stage of cooperation is considered the main stage, where experts work to solve the identified problems and achieve the goals set by the client. The action plan at this stage directly depends on the chosen consulting method: for example, experts may be involved not only in finding solutions but also in their implementation and training of the client company's employees.
In the final stage, the experts from the consulting agency present a report to the client about the work done and jointly summarize the results of the cooperation. If all measures were carried out according to the terms of the contract and the client is satisfied with the achieved results, the companies complete the cooperation by making final financial calculations.