All too often companies hire outside consultants to suggest ways for the company to operate more efficiently If companies were to spend more time listening to their own employees such consultants would be unnecessary

A company in order to be successful needs to seek for ways to make its operations more and more efficient. This helps in lowering the manufacturing costs, improving the product quality, and finally, increasing the profits. Thus, companies tend to hire outside consultants to suggest ways for increasing the efficiency of the company. While this may be a good option in a variety of situations, their own employees could also very well be sometimes the missing piece which the company is looking for.

Employees are the ones who work within the company every day and have a fair idea about the functioning of the company in all its aspects. Therefore, the employees are would have a high probability of knowing if there is an internal flaw in the company which is acting as a deterrent in its growth. For example, if a team is assigned to work on a project for the company, and the team members have some internal conflicts within themselves, the operation of that team is definitely prone to hinder the companies growth. Thus, consulting a team member or an employee who is working closely with that team would clearly be a better option than an external consultant.

On the other hand, external consultants are people who are specialized in these very tasks. They have a better understanding and experience of handling situations related to the growth of a company. They can perfectly identify problems that are responsible for the slow growth of a company and can help counter them. They have seen how other companies operate and can provide inputs regarding operations of a competitor company that is performing better. Hence, consulting external consultants sometimes be a better option.

Moreover, as these consultants work on contract basis and not full time basis, they are usually less expensive. A company is less likely to have premanent employees that are as experienced as these consultants and for this specific task of improving the operational efficiency. If a company were to create more positions, for these tasks, they have to spend more money by paying these permanent employees. Thus, external consultants tend to be overall cheaper to work with.

In conclusion, hiring external consultants could definitely turn to be fruitful in most situations, there could be issues restricting the efficiency of a company that are better solved by consulting their very own employees as they have a better idea of the internal operations of the company.