Previously, consulting for business included only a few areas, the main ones being accounting and financial audit. Over time, the number of its types has increased markedly, and now it covers more than 10 different specializations. Next we will consider the main ones:
Management
It is also called general consulting, as its purpose is a global review of the business to identify and eliminate problems/faults/vulnerabilities, as well as optimize the company’s overall performance and assess the potential for further growth. Management consulting is often a large-scale SWOT analysis, which provides information about all relevant business processes and enables effective decisions to be made to improve them. It may include one or another separate areas of consulting services: financial, human resources, legal, marketing, etc.
Legal
A highly demanded type of consulting, which refers to specialized consulting services. Any entrepreneur or company in the course of its activities has to solve a number of issues in the field of jurisprudence, and as the business develops they become more and more. In this case, not always this problem will solve the employment of an in-house lawyer, sometimes it is more effective to seek help in a consulting company. Legal consulting services for business will help to organize documents and make cooperation with counterparties more transparent.
Financial
Financial consulting is a popular type of consulting services, during which experts help entrepreneurs to create a reliable and effective financial management system. It consists of such activities as analyzing and auditing the financial position of the company, consulting on budget planning, streamlining financial documentation, etc.
Accounting
A common subspecies of financial consulting, which includes advice on the formation of the accounting system, assistance in the preparation of accounting and tax reporting, record keeping in automated information systems, support for tax audits, etc. In addition, accounting consulting specialists provide assistance in setting up and restoring accounting, advise on taxation issues (tax calculation, evaluation of transactions, etc.). They also analyze and correct tax reporting, provide explanations on regulatory documents and controversial situations in the field of accounting and taxation.
Personnel
Personnel consulting is another in-demand area of services of consulting companies. Experts analyze the corporate culture of the company, search and select candidates for open vacancies, advise management, conduct educational and motivational trainings for personnel. HR consulting may also include certification of HR-managers and other specialists, personnel accounting and audit, analysis of personnel policy and document flow, implementation of methods to improve employee productivity, etc.
IT consulting
IT-consulting is becoming an increasingly popular type of consulting services. It helps companies to competently implement and use information technologies to optimize business processes. In the course of this service, experts provide recommendations on the creation, implementation and development of internal corporate IT systems. In some cases they are also engaged in the development of such complexes from scratch or offer ready-made solutions based on the current goals, objectives, problems and specialization of the business. These include customer relationship management (CRM) systems, enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, collaboration software (Groupware systems), network information systems (NIS systems), and more. In addition, IT-consulting includes IT-audit: a set of measures to assess the level of automation of business processes in the company.
Investment
Another important area of business consulting is investment consulting. Specialists of consulting companies help businesses to choose the most highly profitable and/or low-risk options for investing capital. On the other hand, they can also suggest effective ways to attract investments. Investment consulting services include not only finding and attracting investors and investment options. In addition, experts in this area help clients to develop investment projects, act as intermediaries in interaction with credit organizations and insurance companies, and provide legal advice.