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5 key reasons why a startup needs a business consultant

A startup consultant is a ‘hired gun’ who has both the expertise and experience to advise you what to do and execute your plan into action saving you money, time and aggravation. Startups need outside experts who can do the work, as well as provide training on what needs to be done. Business consultants in India can review your business plan, compare it with your goals, and tweak it or suggest ways improve your chances for success.

5 key reasons why a startup needs a business consultant

Friday June 30, 2017,

6 min Read

 A startup consultant is a ‘hired gun’ who has both the expertise and experience to advise you what to do and execute your plan into action saving you money, time and aggravation. Startups need outside experts who can do the work, as well as provide training on what needs to be done. Business consultants in India can review your business plan, compare it with your goals, and tweak it or suggest ways improve your chances for success.

A startup is a business which has been established recently, works in much higher uncertainty and with limited resources and hence startups hire consultants to help them with the early steps of an enterprise. Given the challenging circumstances that a start-up has to grapple with having a large scale consultancy business with high-end expertise is really exorbitant unnecessary expense that only a few startups can afford.

With the alarming alacrity that startups are surfacing on the great Indian entrepreneurial scene, many business consultants now offer affordable services for smaller companies so cost may not always be an issue. Business consultants for startups in India prove an immense help to entrepreneurs that have a business idea but don’t have the knowledge, resources or the experience to move their concept forward. Business consultants can bring in tremendous benefits for startups when hired for the right reasons.

These are the top 5 reasons why a startup needs a business consultant:

                1. Unbiased Feedback: Most startups work with the existing talent, experience; knowledge, and expertise of the business ignore the changes happening outside. This is why receiving honest and unbiased feedback can be immensely beneficial to startups and here is where a startup consultant’s role becomes imperative. Startup consultants can provide a much-needed external outlook to the practices and core model of the startup. The startup will get feedback not only about the concept behind your business but about the details of execution, organization and other critical matters.

                2. Management Advice: Right from initial idea and vision through the next phases and steps of the startup business, the blueprint of your business is just excelling sheets, word documents and PowerPoint presentations on your consultant’s computer. The expertise and advice of startup consultants can be applied to many different areas of your business, and they offer many different consulting services. Most people running startups are relatively young, who have MBA’s out of top B-schools and have decided to follow their own passion, rather than working for someone else. The people in charge of running these businesses can thus be expected to be lacking the requisite managerial experience or knowledge to steer the venture in the correct director, because of obvious handicaps, like young age and little or no experience. A startup consultant can provide management advice based on their experience in management, finance, strategy, marketing, and development, to a young relatively inexperienced CEO who is just learning to steer his business through the business executive word. The client is given insight and gains clarity through working with an experienced professional who has been through the process multiple times.

                  3. Creating a Road Map: Strategic planning is one of the key services provided by startup consultants. Startup consultants help clients through analysis, statistics, and strategy. Strategizing is the key for any business, but it’s especially crucial for startups. Clients partner with experienced consultants to plan critical steps for their startup business. Most startups don’t have a concrete roadmap or even objectives to begin things, hence this remains one of the major hurdles for a startup starting out. A startup consultant will put in place a strategic plan and create a roadmap for your business.

               4. Expertise: A startup consultant brings in the requisite knowledge and expertise for a business which may be beyond the current expertise of the existing skill of the business. A startup consultant is considered an expert in his field of specialization and has plenty of training, and knowledge about the latest tactics and techniques for moving a business forward. Business growth comprises a number of tasks and processes generally aiming at developing and implementing growth opportunities within and between organizations, and only a professional startup consultant can help you with that.

                 5. Market Research: Your startup consultant will meticulously research the market and the segment in which you plan to grow your business in. Market research is considered one of the significant tools of strategic business decisions. Market Research information includes but is not limited to data on your customers' needs, your competitors' abilities and trends within the industry. Professional startup consultants are known for their continuous analysis of the market trends and dynamics which means that they are alert to changes and developments in different market sectors and they will advise you of any suitable chances that they come across.

Business consultancy is the practice of offering business executives professional, prudent third party advice, expertise, and support with the aim of enhancing the business's performance. A business consultant can help your business increase its presence, reputation and revenue through a comprehensive investigation of your directed markets, opponents with comparable business models, and their marketing tactics and deliver a succinct report that will prove vital to your ecommerce business.

Usually a professional with expertise in a certain industry, a consultant with a proven track record to address a business challenge can be hired on the hourly or contractual basis.Consultants are usually brought in to solve an immediate crisis looming large in the business, who looks deeper into the symptoms plaguing the business and helps the client in diagnosing the business towards recovery.

The top most consultancy companies in India are

McKinsey & Company.

Boston Consulting Group.

Bain Consulting India Pvt Ltd.

AT Kearney.

Accenture.

Tata Strategic Management Group.

A. F. Ferguson & Co.

While there are many consultancy services on the scene today, small scale or medium level businesses usually work fine with small-scale consultancy firms or business consultants. SMEs or Startups mostly cannot afford afford these top consultants in India. There are a lot of other sites like GyaanMart who provide affordable consultants for startups. There are a lot of consultants in India who have similar level of experience but doesn't get the required amount of exposure.

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