CONSULTING SERVICES
CONSULTING SERVICES
The LBE® agency offers a complete range of consulting services, from strategic analysis to operational monitoring, in all public and private business sectors:
1. Our business strategy and general policy consulting service focuses on general management performance. This includes everything related to : diagnosis, sector analysis, economic intelligence studies on products and services, forward-thinking planning, strategic planning, guidance in planning for significant developments or manoeuvres, such as mergers and acquisitions, outsourcing, assistance with organisational changes brought about by putting new systems in place, and limiting transitional difficulties through personnel training for new communication and work methods.
2. Our organisation and management consulting service involves assisting businesses (no matter their current stage of development) and public bodies with the crucial matter of human resource management in their organisations, projects, transitions, evolutions and other changes, whether these are by choice or out of necessity. Our work focuses on significantly reorganising the business so as to improve performance while also maintaining the team’s cohesiveness and motivation, putting in place new processes and work methods, and uniting teams around a common vision and clear objectives, even in situations of uncertainty.
3. Our business development consulting service for B2C or B2B companies includes, for example : efficiency studies on the sales policies in place and their on-the-ground implementation, a performance analysis for sales and distribution networks, an analysis of whether the products/services meet with the client’s needs and market trends, determining the client’s position in relation to the competition and how they can work to stand out, identifying human and material resources and business skills to acquire, identifying business threats and opportunities, optimising the sales process, increasing the loyalty of existing clients and drawing in new prospects to broaden the market, managing sales teams, and fostering a team spirit aimed at conquering the market and achieving success.
4. Our strategic and operational marketing consulting service focuses, in particular, on creating a global marketing strategy, market research, defining a pricing policy, investigating client satisfaction and image recognition, building and adapting the range of products to match the needs and expectations of the market, and external communications (public relations, image studies), but also works towards reaching the target market through mastering digital marketing and social networking and increasing the client community’s enthusiasm and loyalty, whether the business is B2C or B2B.
5. Our project management consulting service notably includes a project audit and assistance with managing technological projects, international projects and strategic projects. We offer guidance to project leads so that they can meet the terms of reference laid out for managing their project. We also help to establish synergetic relationships between sponsors, project leads and multi-disciplinary teams. We offer guidance in creating different methods, tools and supports for the management of a project, so that our clients can respect to the letter all their commitments in terms of key milestones and final objectives.
6. Our development through innovation consulting service consists of auditing the innovation and evolutionary needs of our clients, helping to protect their innovations, and leading research teams in developing new products.
7. Our communication consulting service involves defining and implementing a communication strategy and plan, organising internal and external events, creating and putting in place various communication tools, and defining a strategy and resources to help deal with managing situations of crisis.
8. Our IT and communication systems consulting service includes, for example, determining an IT strategy, helping to define the business’s IT system policy, preparing and implementing new IT tools, managing large-scale IT projects, reworking or adapting the business’s current IT system, developing Internet, Extranet and Intranet sites, and technological surveillance.
9. Our human resource management consulting service consists of, inter alia, creating a workplace policy, defining a job’s profile and duties, putting in place a performance appraisal procedure, skills development and management, creating a training plan, internal communications, transfers and career change guidance, social conflict prevention, and developing effective pay grids and pension plans.
10. Our training consulting service consists of working with the human resources department to orient full-time employees towards training that will improve their skills base. The goal is to increase the business’s performance as well as its skills capital. Our streamlined approach relies on conducting training feasibility analyses and studies that are based on your business’s budgetary, administrative and human resource constraints.
11. Our organisation, production management and service “production” (“servuction”) consulting service entails assistance with product management, defining how to implement different production methods, determining ways to improve equipment maintenance, outlining purchasing policies, defining the process of servuction, providing guidance for achieving certification, and completing a quality audit.
12. Our production, logistics and distribution consulting service includes, in particular, a diagnosis of the businesses logistical flows, defining an industrial master plan, and simplifying processes to increase responsiveness and reduce costs.
13. Our finances and management control consulting service involves evaluating the business, a financial diagnosis (working capital, liquid assets, balance sheet position, etc.), financial engineering, developing a management control system, organisation of a finance department, setting up a cash flow management system, redesigning accounting systems, setting up and monitoring a financial dashboard, creating business plans for recovery, start-up activities, etc.
14. Our quality consulting service includes, inter alia, a quality diagnosis, an internal audit, and guidance with setting up a quality management system.
15. Our environmental consulting service includes, for example, putting in place an ISO 14001 certification or audit system, a risk-management study, and promoting a product’s environmental qualities.
16. Our safety and security consulting service consists of auditing a business’s security needs for both their goods and the people on-site who are deemed to be at risk because of the their geopolitical situation, the nature of their work or their physical location. It also entails ensuring cyber-protection of a business’s IT systems, setting up an effective prevention and risk control management policy that takes into account all nature of threats, as well as training and increasing awareness for personnel at risk.
Although our scope of work is very wide, our core business can be defined by two essential management components:
⇒ A human and relational component
⇒ A technical and expertise component
Core Business of the LBE® Agency’s Consulting Services
Always directly linked to our client’s specific situation, our adaptive and creative methods are blended with a combinatory logic approach for using our skills and expertise.
This method allows us to offer targeted support that fits perfectly with the expectations, actual needs and major concerns of the organisation in question.
This added value that we can offer our clients would not be possible if we chose to use only conventional methods, which would mean relying on the process of strictly applying well-known and generally wide-spread management techniques, without ever questioning their efficiency or taking into account the unique situations that our clients are facing. In fact, the real-life component of our work can never completely fit into an abstract theory that is distanced from reality and its social contexts, intricacies, uncertainties and other issues.
In other words, whatever the service called for, every step we take has a clear purpose, since we plan our work both with and for our clients. Their actual situation constitutes the true focus of our planning, and all our efforts are centred on finding pragmatic, precise and permanent solutions for them.
1. Who can take advantage of the LBE® agency’s Consulting services ?
The LBE® agency offers its consulting services for all business sectors, both public and private:
Small Businesses
Small business managers have specific needs, unique to their commercial activity and the business sector that they are working in.
In order to efficiently assist small businesses, we begin by establishing a close relationship with our client that will allow us to interact in a very real and practical way. We listen to a detailed description of the difficulties the business is currently facing, which allows us to understand the context surrounding the business’s management, as well as other issues and constraints (competition, administrative limitations, family matters, etc.)
It is only once a trust relationship has been built and a real dialogue has occurred, such that our frame of reference is the same, that we begin our work.
We believe in making a true commitment to helping small businesses because what they need, above all, is a solid support system that can assist them as they face their current challenges and as they continue to grow in the future.
We are aware that small business managers usually try to avoid consulting services, often because they do not understand what these services really entail or the reasons for their cost.
To try to break through these barriers, we guarantee that we act as a true and legitimate support system for small businesses. We are committed to their overall success in all aspects of strategy and growth. Additionally, our costs are not only accessible and adapted to their financial situations, but the businesses will see them rapidly disappear as they reap the benefits of the services we offer them.
Medium-sized Businesses
Our consulting services are provided to medium-sized businesses in order to help them put in place practical means to increase their revenues and survive in the current market, despite the particularly fierce competition that they face both in France and worldwide.
Because they have to deal with so many different issues (organisation, sales, management, etc.), sometimes these businesses are no longer able to make sufficient and skilful use of all their internal resources.
Our work aims to increase efficiency and overall performance of our client’s business. Our services are based on a precise and exhaustive diagnosis, followed by an action plan created with the clients, decision-makers and other major players.
Large Businesses
Contracting our consulting services is a high-level strategy for large businesses to take.
Our services aim to offer business managers expert solutions for defining a growth strategy.
In practice, we are called upon to step in and deal with all the issues directly or indirectly related to the creation of such a strategy, its implementation, supervision and control.
This business strategy includes identifying ambitious goals, obtaining the necessary complementary skills, strengthening the business’s position in a growing sector, reducing costs intelligently, improving quality levels, etc.
Large businesses need their complex projects to be managed to perfection, as well as an accompanying optimal flow of information. It is our job to ensure this service for large organisations and to create new synergies within them, which will unleash new and necessary sources of energy. These will need to continue to be monitored and controlled in order to ensure that their structure and growth amounts to a real added value for the company.
Public Bodies
Governmental organisations are facing new challenges brought about by restructuring in the public sector (decentralisation of services, personnel reassignment, branch mergers, etc.).
In fact, state reform has resulted in a significant demand in the strategy, organisation and human resources management sectors. Recent legislation has compelled officials to adopt a more result-based strategy. This is an important development as it involves working towards reducing the deficit as well as offering a better service to the end-user. It also entails facing new challenges related to decentralisation, with government agents leaving to work for regional and general councils, as well as the integration of communication technologies in such a way as to not penalise service users, while at the same time achieving the government’s goals of optimising their processes and reducing costs.
The LBE® agency offers its services to all public bodies. As quality, reliable and responsive partner, we effectively assist these organisations throughout the significant evolutions that they must adapt to both now and in the future.
2. Can you offer a few examples of the type of work done through your Consulting services ?
Through our consulting service for leading or facilitating development, we act as an agent for change or a guide in this process. Working with and for the client, we direct adaptation and transformational projects, working with the various players in the company. For example: designing and leading important and/or complex projects, crisis management, coming up with new creative and innovative approaches, development and implementation of strategic management strategies, development of skills and knowledge management, etc.
Through our consulting service for dealing with problems in the field, we offer our clients our significant experience as we work with the applicable players to bring about tangible results. For example: technical assistance in the various sectors of their business, customised quality systems, operational support for a task force or to carry out a project, advice on how to increase productivity and performance, etc.
Through our consulting service for diagnosis and/or evaluation, we offer, above all, our ability to analyse, understand and explore the client’s organisation and its functioning. At the end of this process, we produce a report containing all our recommendations. For example: a global or specialised diagnosis, diverse types of evaluations, strategic studies, market or opinion studies, a benchmarking analysis, etc.
3. How exactly do you provide your Consulting services ?
We offer specialised services with a specific project title, start date, end date, price and method. Further the work concludes with an assessment focused on whether we have achieved the established objectives and on our client’s overall satisfaction. In short, we are well aware that our client is looking to purchase concrete solutions and not merely a certain number of work hours.
We know how to focus our consulting work around ROI (Return On Investment). In short, we know that our clients are always looking to improve their revenues and/or profit margins.
We are known for the particular attention we devote to time management. In order to ensure optimal time management, we are highly responsive to our clients’ needs. We also recognise the importance of being brief, straightforward, concise, accurate, and to the point. We are well aware that business executives have neither the time nor the means to fully delve into all the issues surrounding the complex challenges that their companies are facing.
Actively listening to the actual needs expressed by our clients is a top priority for us. We place a great deal of importance on this stage of operations because we are aware that our clients are looking for definite and concrete solutions to their needs, not just an offer of expertise.
In order to offer tangible solutions, we propose precise action plans that include all the desired results and evaluation criteria. This way, we can satisfy our clients’ needs in a tangible way, instead of just offering abstract theories.
4. How do your Consulting services differ from what is already available on the market ?
Creativity
We rely on a new approach which calls for us to be exceptionally open-minded and creative. We are always on the lookout for any and all opportunities that we might be able to harness for our clients’ benefit.
Foresight
Our ability to always be one or two steps ahead of our clients is one of our greatest strengths. This means that we can help them to avoid strategic errors which could pose them serious problems in the long run.
Strategic foresight is one of the numerous added values that we offer our clients.
TTM (Time To Market)
The LBE® agency has the exceptional and rare ability to offer their clients an improved TTM.
TTM, or Time To Market, refers to the time it takes to develop and fine-tune a project or a product before it can be put on the market.
Given that the length of a product’s life cycle is on the downslide, this has become an important strategic factor for businesses. A noteworthy reduction in TTM can allow businesses to significantly increase their profit margins, as well as opening up to them the possibility of gaining a serious advantage over their competition.
The LBE® agency expresses TTM by the number of months saved, and we obtain this value by calculating it using our ROI spreadsheet (as explained in Question 9).
This is an important added value for all our clients:
- The months that we help you save represent extremely precious periods of time that you will not be wasting on unorganised research done without access to our methodology, which is specially developed to help you succeed.
- This is priceless time that you will not have to write off without even understanding or recognising the cause of your failure, something which could put your organisation and the alliance of your teams at risk.
- This means not wasting months investing in a project that you believe to be promising, but which progressively leads nowhere, without you even necessarily realising it, bringing down the morale of the teams who have put their energy and hopes into this project, as well as negatively affecting your profit margins and letting down your backers and shareholders, since significant funds would have been dispersed without any tangible results.
- This means avoiding spending months writing several different versions of a strategy that is supposed to help your business’s situation and defending your work before different stakeholders, so as to finally be able to get approval after numerous and arduous internal discussions, without ever getting to see your project come to fruition because of a lack of coordination, preparation, communication and/or a united vision.
Individualised Offers
We develop a close relationship and a real dialogue with our clients so that we have the possibility of putting together personalised offers for them, both in terms of our services as well as our fees.
The LBE® agency will collaboratively work in synergy with you in order to offer you a service that fits perfectly with your unique needs.
A Relationship-Based Strategy
Fostering a relationship-based environment within the LBE® agency is one of the essential foundations of our success.
Our agency believes in focussing on relationships and taking into account the particular situation of each of our clients in order to serve them better.
5. What do you mean by a combined operational and human approach ?
The idea that people are your business’s greatest treasure means everything to the LBE® agency.
This sort of approach is not common throughout all consulting agencies.
In fact, many agencies rely on the standardised approaches which currently dominate managerial coaching literature and do not even try to comprehend the dynamic ways that a consultant and a client are linked together.
By adopting a more human approach, we are revitalising and highlighting the dynamic interaction that exists between the client and the consultant.
Also added to the traditional consulting service of proposing solutions for our clients, we lay claim to a new approach where we personally engage in the process of change, instead of merely directing how this change should occur.
In short, we consider our commitment to operational support to be a key factor in the success of the consulting services we offer.
6. How do you manage to work in almost all areas of expertise ?
In order to work in so many areas of expertise, we rely on our network of consultants, experts in key fields and occupations, all of whom are entirely devoted to our clients’ satisfaction.
We cover the majority of needs in all business sectors, no matter the field, technology, occupation or methods in question.
Our men and woman are determined to put their energy, skills and knowledge towards working to achieve your goals. They know how to adapt to your situation and your various constraints, and will guide you in the implementation of hard-hitting action plans that they will construct both for and with you.
Note
If, however, we are asked to work in a field that we consider to be outside of our scope of expertise, we will have no choice but to turn down the offer and direct you, whenever possible, towards another professional who we believe to be better able to assist you.
7. How does your network of consultants work ?
Our network of consultants work together in an adhocracy* that favours a synergy of skills and the conceptualisation process, working towards the solitary goal of offering the best solution at the best price to our clients.
This strategy relies on a collaboration between specialised consultants, who are selected according to the compatibility of their skills with the needs of the desired consulting service. This means that we are completely capable of responding perfectly to our clients’ needs and are able to offer them practical and streamlined solutions. This is possible thanks to a new work method that combines flexibility with precision:
The collaborative work is done by a project team of between 2 to 5 consultants. These are continually rotated according to the needs of our clients and the various skills that the chosen consulting services call for.
Work is done through means of mutual and continual adjustments made by consultants who seamlessly coordinate their work so that they can quickly come to a collective agreement and deliver an innovative and satisfactory proposition to the client.
* Adhocracy is a neologism, derived from the Latin term ad hoc, which is used to designate an organisation which is formed from a combination of workers with multidisciplinary and cross-cutting skills within an unstable and complex environment, and which works towards completing a specific task (problem solving, improving the efficiency of management, developing a new product, etc.).
Adhocracy was coined by Warren Bennis in 1968 and popularised by Alvin Toffler in his 1970 book Future Shock and Robert Waterman Jr. in his 1990 book Adhocracy: The Power to Change.
This concept is in direct opposition to bureaucracy.
8. What are your fees ?
We determine our fees according to several different factors:
- Complexity of the assignment
- Length of the assignment
- Size of the business/public body
- Client-specific constraints
- Resources to put in place
In order to analyse these factors, we have put in place an ROI (Return On Investment) calculator, as explained in Question 9, which illustrates and quantifies the added value that we offer our clients. We then deduct our fees by mutual agreement with the client.
In other words, our work is organised in such a way that it generates a clear and significant added value according to what you, our client, invests in our services.
Small businesses should not shy away from calling upon our services. We know how to adapt to their financial situations so that they receive the very best service for the very best price. In fact, we can align our offer of service (breadth, terms and conditions) as closely as possible with the budget allowances of any small business that has the desire to succeed and the courage to do battle within a difficult and competitive business environment.
Whatever the size of the business or public body that contracts the LBE® agency’s services, we work with our clients and in their best interests to establish a healthy and stable win-win partnership with them.
9. Can you clarify how you use ROI (mentioned in Question 4) to determine your fees ?
ROI stands for “Return On Investment” and is a tool largely used by businesses to judge the performance of their investments.
We calculate an ROI in order to show the value of the services that we offer our clients.
We suggest that our clients analyse the ROI of our work in order to determine the actual value that our services can offer them.
For you, our client, the advantages of considering the ROI are the following:
- Streamlining and facilitating the decision to invest in our services.
- Strengthening our synergetic relationship, since we show ourselves to be your trusted partner, and focussed on the value of the services we offer.
In order to calculate the ROI, we have built an efficient tool that models the different scenarios that could arise from using our services, so that we can identify how to maximise the benefits for our clients.
Our spreadsheet will instantly provide you with the following information:
- The monetary value of our services
- The time it will take for your investment in our services to become profitable
Warning
Of course, ROI is a useful tool for quantifying certain elements in this sort of economic decision. However, it is crucial that it be complemented by an analysis based on the human dimension, risks associated with non-investment, the well-being of employees, the shareholders’ trust, brand recognition, developing a business culture, etc.
This means that we do not only use quantifiable financial figures to determine the worth of our consulting services.
When in consultation with a company’s decision-makers, we present them these two perspectives: economic/financial on the one hand, and human/organisational/visionary on the other.
This is the only means possible to have a complete understanding of the issue at hand, which then allows our clients to make an informed and hard-hitting decision.
This is what makes our approach so complete and unique.
10. What guarantee of success can you offer ?
Selling consulting services is above all selling a product that has yet to exist. As such, it is completely normal that you might be somewhat apprehensive about hiring the LBE® agency for a first consulting service.
By offering consulting services, our work is far-distanced from classical industrial logic, where the product is a tangible and concrete object or able to be used right away. Our work relies on a service-based approach where the product is sold before it is even produced.
“Manufacturing” begins once a task has been determined and is in coproduction with the client, and is only concluded once the guaranteed evaluation process has been completed at the end of our services.
Because of this, we understand that potential service users may see purchasing our consulting services as an uncertain investment.
Choosing to contract a consulting service requires clients to analyse and compare the costs and advantages that are at stake. They must undertake to simply “wait for the results”, although nothing at the beginning of this process truly seems to be guaranteed.
With this in mind, and to begin our collaboration in the best conditions and on the most solid foundations possible, we commit to proving and guaranteeing maximum results, despite the difficulty of being able to do so within a universe that remains so eminently immaterial. We will do everything in our power to offer you these important guarantees so as to help minimise the risk and uncertainty that you may perceive when considering recruiting our services.
To reassure our future clientele, we rely on a number of ways to present the quality of our work in a clear and concise fashion:
- Visibly demonstrating our results through a written report
- An oral defence of our proposal
- Testimonies from our previous clients
- References from other businesses in similar fields
11. Are your services available outside of France ?
Of course !
We are happy to guide you towards success in your projects no matter where you are, regardless of the country or city that you call home or the language that you speak.
In fact, the LBE® agency is proud to work at an international level.
We are open to all the world’s cultures and are happy to come to you in order to work with you towards your success.
Do not hesitate from contacting us to further discuss the services we offer.
If you have other questions about our Consulting services, please feel free to contact us !
If you are an expert in your field and identify with our approach to consulting and the level of excellence that we offer our clients, please feel free to contact us about working for the LBE® agency.