Microadvisory: the new normal of business advisory brings shorter sessions but a more of expertise

In the first lockdown almost all consulting workshops had to be cancelled, a horror news for all management consultancies. However, most management consultants did not want to resign themselves to the complete standstill of their business and started to offer consultations via video conferencing. A trend has already emerged: Consultations are becoming more targeted and shorter.

German Version: https://www.finothek.io/post/microadvisory-die-neue-normalit%C3%A4t-der-unternehmensberatung-bringt-ein-mehr-an-expertise

From a stopgap solution to the new value of consulting

What was initially thought of as a stopgap solution now also brings its advantages. For experts, it means being able to work more flexibly from anywhere and focus on core expertise through short concise sessions. The spatial flexibility enables collaboration even at a distance, which is why the location of the consulting firm and the regional offer are pushed into the background and the expertise is emphasized even more. This is a clear advantage for entrepreneurs who benefit from focused expertise tailored to their individual problems. The universal availability enables entrepreneurs to exchange ideas with many different experts in an uncomplicated, fast and travel-free way.

The short consultations can be thematically aligned along the strategic development of a company and each expert contributes with his or her own core competence to a piece of the economic development of a company:

The new approach of Microadvisory was born - holistic business development divided into small consulting modules, which in their entirety cover the complete consulting needs of businesses. In the past, business consulting was often perceived as "selling workshops", but now the added value of expert advise for the further development of the company is clearly brought to the fore again and the effect is strengthened. Companies can now develop step by step and experience the tangible added value of external expertise at every single step.

Digital infrastructure made in Europe from a single source

At the very beginning of the first lockdown, the strategy, financing and digitalization consultant finothek GmbH started offering advice for bridge financing via Linkedin posting + calendly Link + Zoom. After about 15 appointments in two weeks, it was clear that the required combination of different online tools was not only bumpy, but also redistributed again a large part of the value creation to US IT companies. Therefore, the consulting company from Linz, together with software and marketing agencies, started to develop an integrated consulting platform, which was published in October under the name hallosophia.com - short for "hello sophisticated advisor". After two months of intensive testing, the platform is now ready to use for every expert in business consulting. finothek GmbH itself thus withdraws from consulting and offers the infrastructure to leading experts from all fields in order to make the complete variety of expertises accessible to the users of hallosophia.com, instead of limiting the offer with its own core competences. The technical infrastructure offers experts their own expert profile, which can be shared via social media or messenger, making it ideal for referral or business initiation. An appointment can be coordinated directly via this profile, the core expertise is predefined as a topic of conversation, secure document exchange via encrypted servers in the EU and own video consulting rooms made in Austria included. The messaging service is currently being implemented so that chats with customers do not have to be handled via US servers, as was previously the case. In its development, the company has taken its cue from the (analog) process optimization of large consulting firms and banks, where a nice receptionist asks the right preparatory questions and coordinates appointments for experts so that they can concentrate on finding solutions in conversation with the client. This task is taken over on hallosophia.com by the virtual assistant Sophia, who asks potential clients about goals, obtains documents, coordinates appointment suggestions and reserves a personalized advisory room for the appointment. The full digital infrastructure made in Europe and tailored to business development, is now available to entrepreneurs and experts alike. By means of a search function according to business goals, the right expert can be found and the entire coordination can be done digitally. The consultation itself is also held in a personalized and secured virtual advisory room, so that the efficiency of the consultation is further increased. Until the end of the first quarter of 2021, the platform is still completely free of charge and even after that, the service will not cost more than the previous US tools for appointment coordination, video conferencing, document exchange. Not only the cost advantage is convincing, but also the positive side effect of the security of EU servers and the positive contribution to the strengthening of digital companies in Europe to keep important, digital value creation in the domestic economy.

Let's bring needed expertise to businesses in the most straightforward and goal-oriented way possible, because the stresses of the pandemic require us to find new ways. When new ways are sought, the exchange with many economic experts can make the difference between bankruptcy and success course - let's make the post-COVID economic miracle possible together!

more at: www.hallosophia.com

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