The Best Software for Consultants
What are the best software solutions out there for consultants? Simply put, the ‘best’ solutions meet the needs of your consulting business, not the first search result or the solution with the best reviews. As a consultant, you will have a unique offering, so the best solution for your business will be different from others. When evaluating options, keep your requirements top of mind, and look for solutions in the market that solve or automate pain points in your existing consulting process. In this article, we have outlined what to look out for in tools to enhance and innovate your consulting process.
Identify Opportunities in your Process
Before you begin looking for specific software solutions, you will need to identify opportunities in your process that you can automate. When you know which parts of your process can and should be automated, use this insight to identify the best consulting tools or systems. Include any key stakeholders in the process, and ensure you are aligned with your teammates and customers on any new workflows.
Evaluating solutions takes time and effort. Searching for the ‘top 10 project management tools for consultants’ won’t give you a list of vendors matched to your needs. When buying technology, it’s vital to perform a thorough evaluation to ensure your purchase matches your needs. Take the time to speak to the stakeholders involved. What would your consulting software solutions need to help you and your team achieve your goals?
4 Solutions to Consider When Sourcing the Best Consulting Software
1. Project Management Tools for Consultants
Project management tools are necessary for keeping your technology evaluations or multiple technology evaluations on track. PM tools will help your team collaborate better on multiple projects simultaneously and can also facilitate collaboration with key stakeholders. For consultants, consider features such as ease of use, collaboration, clear reporting, and data aggregation.
Examples of project management software for consulting firms include:
Olive’s easy-to-use software can help you template and manage projects for repeat use. With features and solutions created to streamline requirements gathering and specific project templates for common solutions already built-in, our consultants reap the benefits of a tool that speeds up time to implementation.
2. Requirements Management Tools
Gathering requirements is notoriously tricky, and few understand the potential pitfalls that can lead to failed implementations. You are susceptible to more risk without clear requirements, but the process takes a lot of time. A mismanaged requirement in the wrong place of your evaluation scorecard can erase weeks of due diligence, so when looking for the right requirements gathering tool, ensure it’s secure, efficient, and scalable.
As well as human error, gathering and managing large amounts of data securely in spreadsheets via emails and meetings is risky and tedious. Many project management tools are available that pitch requirements management, yet few compare to the robust features available in Olive.
Olive’s Software allows you to gather, rank, manage and collaborate on requirements with ease. Our software streamlines and shortens the process while allowing for greater collaboration and increased due diligence.
3. Technology Evaluation Tools
There are entire websites dedicated to presenting technology reviews, and now there are even websites that review the tech review websites. When browsing them, remember, “What works well for one consultant may not work for another.” Reviews are subjective opinions. These “Technology Review Platforms” are not “Technology Evaluation Platforms.” Our data shows that, on average, companies only evaluate 5% of their potential options. The only way you can genuinely find the solutions you need is to evaluate 100% of the relevant solutions available against your business needs, with adequate buy-in and contribution from relevant stakeholders.
4. Data Collection and Process Automation
As a software consultant, you are likely no stranger to dealing with large and tedious amounts of data. Data collection can become complex and cumbersome if it is not all streamlined and kept in one secure place. Simply gathering and ranking your client’s requirements can lead to sleepless nights of combining spreadsheets and lost information. A formula in the wrong place of your evaluation criteria scorecard can erase weeks of due diligence, so when looking for the right data collection tool, ensure it’s secure, efficient, and scalable. It’s important to look for project management software that efficiently manages data. With Olive, your data is automatically time-stamped and collected when surveys are deployed. Machine learning takes it one step further, giving you unbiased insights and matching needs to solution features.
The Ultimate Software for Consultants
With Olive, you can automate your process with repeatable project templates and easily create and reuse project templates. Preload with initial discovery questions, functional requirements, non-functional requirements, and surveys. Vendor details and responses will be saved in your data for future projects, saving time and resources. We also Provide co-branding so you can show your clients you are using next-gen solutions in your process.
As a software consultant, the best project management software is the one that most closely reflects your process. We work with of consultants from all verticals to understand which parts of the process can be automated and built Olive to do just that!
Your consulting expertise and niche combined with Olive’s cutting-edge tech can help you stand out from the competition, grow your consulting business, and provide exceptional recommendations to your clients in less time with more diligence.
