How to build first-rate relationships with your BI consultants

If your organisation is looking to benefit from implementing business intelligence (BI) solutions but doesn't yet have the talent in house to make the move pay off, it's only natural to reach out for some consulting help. Hiring a good BI consultant can help your employees improve their skills and complete difficult projects they might have trouble with otherwise.

Hiring a good BI consultant can help your employees improve their skills and complete difficult projects.

The only drawback is that sometimes, communication between your employees and consultants might be difficult in the early going. After all, your staff members live and breathe their work every day, whereas your consultants are outsiders who are new to your workplace and trying to learn everything on the fly. There are sure to be difficulties.

One of the major challenges in consulting, therefore, is to develop relationships and get to the point where both sides can communicate with one another and collaborate easily. That might take time, but it's worth it in the long run.

Consultants offer short- and long-term benefits

It might seem like an onerous process to develop relationships from scratch with your company's new consultants, but it's one that should ultimately pay off. According to The Muse, most companies see a wide range of benefits stepping from consultant relationship building, some in short term and others, the long.

The immediate impact of a good consultant is having the capability to complete difficult business projects with greater ease. If you're working with unfamiliar BI solutions or analysis data that doesn't make sense to you, a consultant can help you tackle the challenges in front of you and get your project done better and faster. This will provide immediate, tangible value for your business.

What's less immediate, but still important, is the benefit you get from having a consultant as a mentor over the long haul. Once a BI specialist has helped you tackle one big business challenge, it will be easier to come back to them later for additional guidance over the following months and years. Mentorship is a gift that keeps on giving.

It's time to improve the collaborative process

The key to a great worker/consultant relationship is strong collaboration. If the two sides are able to work together rather than distinct and siloed from one another, they're far more likely to find success.

Employees and consultants need to communicate well.Employees and consultants need to communicate well.

To this end, TechRepublic advises that both sides constantly keep each other informed of the progress they're making on the challenges in front of them. If both are able to document each step of the work they're undertaking and seamlessly share updates in real time, they'll be in good shape.

Using complicated new enterprise solutions for BI can feel overwhelming, especially to non-tech employees who aren't used to it. But by breaking the process down into manageable pieces and celebrating each milestone along the way to success, employees and consultants can make the whole ordeal far easier to swallow.

Solution consulting can benefit your business

The way many would have you believe it, consulting is all about sharing expertise. They'll tell you a consultant's job is to swoop in and talk your ear off about how to use new technology and get products done. At AtoBI, however, that's not how we see it. We believe that a good consulting relationship begins not with talking, but with listening.

That's where our approach to solution consulting begins. We plan to listen carefully to your concerns from the very beginning, identifying what challenges you face and how we can help you combat them. Success with BI consulting is all about great relationships, and we're hoping to start off on the right foot with you.