In large companies, peak workloads, particularly in the context of transformation projects, often require the recruitment of external functional or technical-functional consultants. And then the headache begins... The current context of resource shortages makes the task much more complex. It is therefore essential to find a trusted partner who will be able to offer you the profile you are looking for. But what makes the difference between a good and a bad independent consultant? How can a company go about finding the right talent for its needs?
First of all, you have to be uncompromising about the level of quality in all its forms! Reactivity of the contact person, quality of written or oral exchanges, relevance of the answers to the call for proposal... The customer experience must be perfect!
Isabelle Kinderf, Finance Director at Danone, shares with us her experience of working with FocusTribes for the past two years. She tells us about the main skills she is looking for in a consultant, and why she particularly appreciates the freelancers of the community.
Are you about to embark on a transformation project? Do you need quality consultants to strengthen your teams?
Hello, I am Isabelle Kinderf.
I started my career as an engineer and then continued with experience in finance in different positions in different subsidiaries of the group. After having been in charge of controlling for the company, I decided to take responsibility for a finance transformation project at Danone.
We want to add new functionalities and a new data model to our Finance transactional system, in order to prepare for S/4 Hana on the one hand, but also to enable Finance to support the business in 'real time', i.e. to be able to respond quickly to the business. The second aspect of this programme is to harmonise the accounting processes.
For a programme of this magnitude, we at Danone did not have the skills. To find these skills, we went to the market and tested them with FocusTribes, which has been supporting us for two years. And the result was quite conclusive!
FocusTribes provides us with experienced profiles and also allows us to absorb the inevitable workload peaks in a project of this scale. What I particularly appreciated during the exchanges with FocusTribes was the quality of the profiles selected! Not only did we absolutely need technical skills, but also the ability to interact with our functional teams.
On the one hand, to integrate with the project team quickly and easily, but also with the local field teams. In other words, the experience of these consultants and their dual technical/relational skills allowed us to let them work "front-line" with our local teams, with very effective results.
The second quality that I appreciated was that these experienced profiles were capable of being positioned on a design subject or on an implementation subject or on a technical recommendation. So really a very rich field of experience, and also very result-oriented. In this type of project, there are moments of tension, moments of rush and these are people who are very familiar with the project mode and who fit in quite well with this mode of operation.
So the result was really very good!
As Isabelle says, at FocusTribes we make it a point of honor to only send very relevant profiles to clients. So much the worse if sometimes we are unable to respond to a call for proposals. We prefer to inform the client and not waste their time, rather than having to skimp on quality.
Having knowledgeable consultants who are able to adapt very quickly to a new environment because they have seen it all before saves clients a lot of time! Technical and functional skills are also a prerequisite for joining the FocusTribes community, as is the level of experience. But beyond these fundamentals, the main requirement is for consultants to know how to behave.
As Manon Dagorne, Talent Acquisition Manager at FocusTribes and head of the new TA Hub in Barcelona, explains: "We attach great importance to the human dimension of our members. Their adaptability, their ability to bring together the different parties involved in a project and their ability to communicate in English, but often in several languages, makes life much easier for our clients! And if you add a touch of humour, the public is won over!
Finally, the common thread among quality consultants is that they are result-oriented. This means that they are 100% committed to their mission and will always look for the best solution to achieve the objective. They are committed to the here and now. Efficient, they also have a real code of shared values.
This is also the foundation and strength of FocusTribes. Excellence, Commitment, Trust and Collective are the four values advocated by the company, shared internally and with all members of the Tribe.
So don't wait any longer to call on the FocusTribes consultants for your transformation projects!
To go further, read the following articles on our Blog:
6 essential soft skills for a good freelance consultant
How to select the right people to carry out transformation projects?
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