July 1st 2015, it’s official! The World Bank has announced new additions to the lower middle-income bracket for Gross National Income per capita (GNI): Bangladesh, Tajikistan, Myanmar and Kenya. This, according to the World Bank, is indicated by annual incomes of $1,046 to $4,125.Time to celebrate! Or is it?
As Kenya strives and springs towards achieving economic growth through various belligerent interventions facilitated by the government and private sector, we need to ask whether these diverse activities are achieving maximum efficiency. On this challenging road to industrialization that has seen manufacturing play a pivotal role in this aggressive drive, top level management and policy makers are turning more and more to professional services to achieve the most out of their investments and projects. Could more efficient usage of resources have seen Kenya propelled past its current socioeconomic rating?
Using this brief case study of Kenya on its journey towards further economic development, we shall take a look at the importance of professional services and the difference made by seeking value additional assistance in project implementation.
Professional services can be extremely helpful to organizations as they move along the path toward greater comprehensiveness by assisting in planning, management, and implementation.
Consultants can:
- Provide knowledge that comes from extensive experience and help evade simple mistakes.
- Offer valued outside outlook that may help when you feel that you aren’t making as much progress as you would like. An external entity often provides a viewpoint on an organization’s dynamics that may be difficult to see or perceive from within.
- Help negotiate differences of opinion between members of the board of directors and the staff and/or volunteers regarding directions the initiative could take.
- Help bring out the voices of people with less authority within the organization. These individuals may have valued sentiments that are often not easily heeded by senior management and/or the board of directors.
Why does an organization engage a consultant?
These are the 12 most common needs for consulting help:
- Temporary assistance
- Objective review
- Third-party request for problem /opportunity identification & resolution /realization
- Surviving a crisis
- Initiating change
- Obtaining funding
- Selecting key personnel
- In-house education
- Conflict resolution
- Executive assistance
- Government regulatory assistance
- Socio-economic and political change.
Written by Ngengi Kamau
References:
http://www.nonprofitinclusiveness.org/
http://www.sitesuite.com.au/
