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Fahim Moledina's List of Considerations for Hiring Business Consulting Services

Fahim Moledina’s List of Considerations for Hiring Business Consulting Services

Every entrepreneur wants to grow their company and become recognized as a trademark in the industry. However, because no one is capable of doing the remarkable, you must be creative if you want to realize your entrepreneurial dreams.

In order to operate a successful organization, there are a lot of factors to consider, making acquiring an expert’s assistance all the more crucial. You may learn what to seek when choosing a business consultation expert and why they are crucial for any firm from professional service consultant Fahim Moledina.

Working Knowledge

When you’re employing a professional for your company, one of the most important things to examine is their professional background. To find out more about an expert’s field of specialty, you should look into their prior experience. Seek specialists in your field if you offer a certain type of service or item.

The Price of the Solutions

The fact that businesses cannot afford the expense of an inner team’s solutions is another significant factor in their decision to hire a business consulting specialist. As a result, shifting to the offshoring option is a more than viable option.

On the other extreme, engaging a business consulting professional from a third party simplifies it for you because you invest only in the solutions you are engaging them for.

Look for Companies That Can Provide You with Custom Business Solutions.

The objectives and desires of every firm are unique, just as every single proposed business is. Every consulting firm must comprehend that each client’s business goal is distinct in its own right and that using a pre-established formula could not be successful.

Discover what market strategy they are supplying you when negotiating and concluding the procedure of business management consultancy. Do they want to hear about your goals and desires, or do they just provide you with a pre-made solution that is claimed to be universal?

Do they Receive Updates on Their Work?

People frequently believe that hiring a professional should be an additional investment because creating and implementing business concepts may appear like a simple undertaking. However, as you do so, be certain to search for those who are knowledgeable about the industry and stay up with the most recent market trends.

Per Fahim Moledina, employing a business consulting professional enhances the likelihood that your company will grow more quickly, change the goods or services, and provide a favorable perspective for the company.

Organizational Development: Culture Changes and The Voice of The Customer- Fahim Moledina

Organization Development (OD) is becoming more important as speed in operations and strategy is becoming a necessity with technology changing how people work. Workplace culture is increasingly becoming important in organizations as companies need to modernize or even just keep up with the current market. The functions of an OD Department are vast and often they have high influence on the methodologies and processes that are key to employee’s skills, efficiencies and leadership. There are many companies with no OD group but somebody or a team of people always need to fill the role. OD demand is increasing with the pace of technology, business and customer demands to push organizations to keep up with demand. The methodologies and the processes built by OD groups send a ripple effect across organizations good and bad. Often these groups are empowered to make changes across organizations and really drive a corporate culture, they have many requirements and some of them I will not touch on, but the ones that I will are training, change management, and the OD team’s role in fostering the corporate culture. Human resource development (HRD) and OD are different as human resource development is focused on individuals growth (even though OD teams often will help on this training) within an organization while OD is more focused on the methodologies, processes and structure to improve organizational effectiveness so initiatives are often on a larger scale.

Read More About Fahim Moledina

It is essential the OD teams understand change as well as often they are facilitating or leading change. Often OD specialists are training groups on new methods and help guide restructuring if it is to occur. What is often missed in this role is measuring the impacts of the initiatives — often people think of OD initiatives as projects and follow up on measurement and impact is not as common as one would think. Still with the demands for change in regards to working with greater speed and hyper-personalization the question is how can OD teams helps foster an environment where change is embraced and the culture of an organization shifts to be customer centric and really based on the voice of the customer.

Organizational Development groups being Human Resource Department centric is inherently flawed. If OD teams want to implement change, the structure of teams being cross-functional and understanding the customer, client or stakeholder intimately starts to become very important. I do understand that this can be an undertaking with tradeoffs but cost-benefit analysis (CBA) should be carried out on initiatives and of course following if people-driven a comparative Cost-productivity analysis (CPA) is also highly recommended. Some methods of evaluation for initiatives as well as making them more iterative can help their success. OD initiatives are becoming increasingly important as these teams can affect outcomes that are important for organizations long term sustainability. Many OD initiatives are about setting an organizational culture and continuous improvements are common and OD teams can have a large effect on operational efficiencies. These teams can really focus their energies on empowering employees by eliminating traditional hierarchy across their organizations and fostering a culture of service that will help customer experience.

Without engaged employees, it is difficult to achieve high functional teams which are an outcome many OD teams strive for. Trust within teams and between teams is important in developing high functioning teams and often change can affect trust, so how do you foster change when needed without breaking trust? Building capacity for change takes time and change readiness is important in making sure teams can keep or build trust when change is occurring. Change initiatives can often be taxing on a team’s trust. Trust is often needed for agility and speed on teams and to build a high performing service-based culture focused on clients and customers.

OD plays a large role in facilitating organizational culture therefore often customer centricity initiatives are indirectly driven from OD. Even if OD teams are somewhat removed from day to day operations they often still instill the culture within the organization and to understand the voice of the customer (client/ stakeholder) you need to be willing to listen first. I have heard multiple times in my career that the customer “doesn’t know what they are talking about”. That “we are the experts” and the deliverable ends up being not what the customer wanted. Understanding the voice of the customer and the requirements that they are proposing is important in providing value as well in learning from past projects. OD teams can help build customer experience with processes and methods to instill a culture of listening and learning from customers and training across the organization to listen to the voice of the customer and their requirements.

Customer Experience (CX) is one of the largest drivers of change within organizations currently and it is a major strategy for service-based companies (I will talk about the growth of CX in another post). The demands of customers are growing and customers are easy to switch when there is a bad experience as brand loyalty is often only as good as their last experience. OD can be instrumental in capturing the voice of the customer and instilling a culture where the voice of the customer is a strategic priority within the organization is going to become increasingly more important as customer-obsessed organizations who personalize experiences will thrive and OD teams need to be ready to lead this change.

If you want extensive content on Organizational Development practice I highly suggest reading the book below:

http://amzn.in/c1jZATq

Or at minimum check out Dr. John Latham’s website:

https://organizationdesignstudio.com/

I am taking a break from blogging (just slowing down) as I focus on learning some programming languages and completing my MBA. Still, do not hesitate to reach out if you do want to connect.

More from Fahim Moledina

Fahim Moledina is the Principal Consultant for Opti-Syn Strategic Consulting and is a business leader with expertise in project/change management, finance, lean/agile methods, as well as marketing and sales.

 

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The CPA Fyre Festival: Flawed Examinations & Torturous Learning – Fahim Ekbal Moledina

I have questioned much of my formal learning recently in regards to not just the ROI but the tortuous nature of some exams. Recently I read about the CFE (CPA certification exam- Common Final Exam) that takes over two years to acquire but the exam is three days long and is fairly intense. I understand the need for an intensive process and training for any professional but at what point is this excessive. It seems like many professional associations currently are more interested in making sure they collect their money and also maximize their profits as they are not focused on teaching but maximizing their profit. This often means charging a high fee and in reality, do not measure the knowledge of the student. I will explain my positioning further in this post. The CPA recently had some issue with their CFE (Common Final Exam) it is a three-day ordeal that currently on average passes just below 80% of the writers. I have written exams much like this or in University had two to three-hour exams each day for 3 days which is fairly comparable. The issue here is often very accomplished individuals who are more than competent struggle on exams and often the competence on a subject cannot be measured on a three-day gruelling exam- I have met some incredibly bright people smarter than me who have failed exams and certifications that I have passed. Often these older organizations struggle with change. The CFE debacle has not been solved as students unfairly still had to write exams without appropriate resources as well as long waits of over 12 hours with minimal access to nourishment. It is disappointing that the CPA did not perform their due diligence in regards to QA testing for their CFE exam. Some basic best practices in regards to quality/ user testing would have probably solved the issues that occurred. The question is now with the CFE exam providing an unfair experience for students what will CPA do. It seems like not counting this attempt is a start but I know if I was a student and had put in all that time studying I would have been devastated being put in this situation:

The lack of exam integrity as the writer mentions is at best poor. The other items that are disgraceful are the lack of communication, humility and responsiveness from the CPA. As the majority of these individuals are young professionals my suggestion is for them to remember this and eventually push for changes. Being realistic about it there relationship with CPA currently is they are needing to be subservient due to trying to gain there credential. In reality when you article at a firm you are often working long hours on a salary where you end up making less per hour than 80% of administrative roles. Your earning potential is largely hampered until you “get your letters”. Therefore the amateurish attempt of applying the CFE exam changes cost these students a lot more than an attempt but time and future opportunities as well a choice to not be doggedly worked. The other issue here is some cities had a lot of issues while others had none so basically with double-blind testing at a national examination center which I think is a great standard but now the disadvantaged individuals are against others who had no issues. None of this has been addressed by the CPA except for hiring a firm to do an independent investigation. This will take time and not help the students that wrote and do not pass the CFE. There supposedly on the Reddit page was also an offer to defer exams if students chose but in reality, this is an unfair option to students who spent months studying only to do it over again. Some students question the ROI of a CPA and are wondering if an MBA is another option but these students have gone pretty far and will probably complete there CPA’s as they have invested a lot into them. In reality, this was a torturous exam that was made worse with the poor process and lack of due diligence.

My experience has always been nervousness, stress and some uncertainty with exams but at the same time, I always understood that exams were generally a necessity for a course. I question this now as I am not sure a traditional exam measures competence as much as people think. So back to the CFE- to become a CPA is fairly intense and a three-day exam seems excessive but the opposing view would be it weeds out individuals who might not be competent enough. I would argue a three-day exam is much like many of my university courses where I crammed a bunch of knowledge into my head and then proceeded the next month to forget it and create space for other knowledge. I will say there was a lot of room for improvement in my first learning experience I ran into some incredibly traditional learning with tenured professors teaching the same way they had for twenty years. Many University’s and professional designations are systemically structured to resist change internally while claiming and showing that they are open to change. In regards to competence, I ask if an individual did not know something they could research it and often figure out how to apply that knowledge. My personal opinion is the application of the knowledge is more important to test than the knowledge itself. Often open book exams and assignments, and presentations that can be prepared for are more realistic and practical. I have now been working in a leadership or administrative role for over fifteen years and realize the skill of writing an exam is something I have seldom used. Often it is simple to accept this and be socialized to do what you are told but we should be looking at our education system and asking if this is the best way to learn and re-evaluate learning. Many post-secondaries are trending in evaluating how people learn and also the mediums they use to teach. The traditional exam is losing traction to practical learning and assignments that are more real-life and application-based.

I also remember many of the exams I have written had options for courses to help you pass the exam. The course was not focused on teaching the skill or competency but completely focused on how to pass the exam. I have now come to realize that in the pursuit of knowledge instead of certifications I have become more satisfied with the content and skills I have gained. I commend many companies who share knowledge and provide training. Intel and Amazon now provide free AI and machine learning courses and Hubspot now has Hubspot University and if you are a marketer it has great training. There is much more offered in regards to free learning and organizations need to start looking at the value of this. I recently went to Prosci training and there was not an intensive exam but what Prosci did incredibly well was allow its students to apply the concepts to their real-world examples.

Some feeds from the CFE/ CPA exam are below:

‘Fyre Festival for accountants’: CPA Canada takes heat after national exams plagued by glitches

Edmonton Experience

CPA Negligence

Fahim Ekbal Moledina is the Principal Consultant for Opti-Syn Consulting and is a business leader with expertise in project/change management, finance, lean/agile methods, as well as marketing and sales.

Fahim Ekbal Moledina

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Staff Empowerment the Key To Organizational Speed

Management and Executives are often afraid to let go of power and decision making. In working with very diverse companies and industries I have seen different levels of willingness to let go and empower staff underneath them to make decisions not just to keep at speed with consumers but also in making the highest-quality decisions. Many organizations can be highly bureaucratic and the organizational structure itself can often not lend itself to staff pushing basic decisions up hierarchically and this can lead to staff feeling like they are not empowered or not trusted. Leaders can also become content in making many of the decisions and often they are doing so not being the expert on the issues or decisions themselves.

 So the question becomes how do we change the culture and process in streamlining approvals, empowering and engaging staff. It is easy to implement a process and provide guidelines with an approval matrix but often it is not that simple, as in my experience if there is no trust with the staff or if leaders are not willing to delegate and trust colleagues and other staff with expertise in their areas it becomes difficult to stay afloat. I have seen many well-intentioned managers and executives become the blockage in approvals and often collateral can sit on the end of a desk when it is time-sensitive and the ROI dwindles as valuable work sits unapproved and not launched or implemented.

Change Management in regards to letting go of control for management and executives can be very difficult. Often executives and management want change but often do not want to change their actions themselves and this can often mean processes and operational speed can be held up in many of these cases. Time and again change management’s essential in changing culture and mindsets. Using influence to change actions of leadership and get them too often play the role of a servant leader and coach can help accelerate the maturity of an organization. Successfully changing leaders’ roles and mindset has been something I have taken pride in within my career to align them with goals and destinations that the organizations are focused on reaching.

Empowering the people with the most information and closest to issues to make decisions can help teams become more efficient and alleviate pressures from management. A great perspective of this was Captain David Marquet’s command of a nuclear submarine and his empowerment of his crew. In reality, the mind of one leader is not as strong as a whole team so it is, an organization leverages its employees. Captain Marquet’s video can be found below:

The shift to empowering employees is one of the largest keys to developing speed and often efficiency. Leaders often feel like they need to take control to generate speed to market but this can often slow decision making while reducing efficiency and quality. Leaders often are best-served leveraging employees’ strength and helping build trust to empower the organization to help reach optimize their efficiency.

Fahim Moledina is the Principal Consultant for Opti-Syn Strategic Consulting and is a business leader with expertise in project/change management, finance, lean/agile methods, as well as marketing and sales.

Fahim Ekbal Moledina

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Slowing Down to Speed Up- Fahim Moledina

Agile business practice is all the rage currently. Management and executives want to do more with less and many believe in implementing agile business processes that they can reduce staff or increase throughput. At times this might be the case but often it is important to remember the point of agile is to put the customer satisfaction at the forefront. In stating all of this it is essential to think through changes strategically and understand the future state that is being driven towards. Often changing business practices to agile doesn’t speed up work at all but often can slow things down if staff and management are not trained and disjointed.

In my experience with agile journeys, it is important before jumping into agile processes to make sure sponsorship from executive and management is strong and they are actively engaged to provide support for initiatives. Often it is essential to gain alignment within the organization or department before intensifying agile processes. Agile journeys can often fail when laggards are in positions of power and have not bought into many of the steps forward as the journey is a culture change and not operational. Therefore alignment can often be gained with highlighting the benefits but also the limitations of agile. It is interesting that agile journeys can be done in iterations but in reality to a more defined project and change management plan can help in accelerating the value of agile methodologies.

Taking steps to team and organizational agility can be daunting and often organizations. Failure to slow down and look within can cause agile journeys to hit larger roadblocks. In agile journeys, it is important to look at workforce planning as well as overall strategies within the department including up-skilling staff, project management software suitability and multiple other factors to long to mention. It is also essential to communicate to stakeholders and staff as a failure to do so on next steps can cause a lack of engagement. As not communicating also sends a message which can reduce engagement holding back the agile mindset shift.

The word agile transformation is interesting in itself as the word transformation depicts that there is an end or destination but in reality the process of shifting to agile methodologies is a culture change that requires continuous improvement and iterations. But in moving forward with agile methodologies it is important to have a plan but important to slow down and look inward before implementing agile methods to accelerate agile methods and mindsets across organizations.

Fahim Moledina is the Principal Consultant for Opti-Syn Strategic Consulting and is a business leader with expertise in project/change management, finance, lean/agile methods, as well as marketing and sales.

Fahim Ekbal Moledina

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