- About this advice
- Preparing the brief
- Interviewing and selecting candidates
- Appointing the consultant
- Working together to ensure best results
- Reporting arrangements
- Should anything go wrong
- Feedback
About this advice
These guidelines on appointing a consultant were prepared by the Tourism Society's Tourism Consultants Network. The guidelines are based on detailed research among users of consultancy services, including the national tourist boards and the consultant members of the Tourism Society. The research showed:
- From the clients' point of view, there is a high level of agreement on the most cost-effective methods of commissioning consultants and managing their work.
- From the consultants' point of view, if the clients followed these guidelines when appointing and directing them, then the value and quality of the work ultimately produced would be much higher, as budgets could be used more effectively and profitably to the mutual benefit of both client and consultant.
Preparing the brief
Where do I find a consultant?
- You may not need to look further than the Tourism Consultants Network directory
- The professional organisations most relevant to your project will usually have listings e.g. your local Tourist Board, the Museums Association.
- Recommendations: ring around to find out who has done what elsewhere.
When you have got some names of potential consultants, ring them up to establish their interest - and get a first impression.
How many consultants should I approach?
Ideally approach three, certainly never more than five.
- The more consultants you ask to make submissions, the more you increase your own workload. It is time-consuming to liaise with candidate consultants, to meet with them, to provide background information and to assess their proposals.
- If you ask more than three, some of the most suitable and busiest consultants might decide not to make proposals because the chance of being selected is reduced.
- Indirectly, consultancy fees will rise; each practice will spend more of its time making unsuccessful submissions and the costs involved can only be recovered in the longer run through higher charges to clients.
Should I let consultants know how many consultants I have approached?
- Providing information on how many consultants have been approached will allow them to gauge their chances of success.
- It is also helpful if you can say who the other consultants are. You can then be sure that consultants who put forward proposals will really dedicate themselves to winning the contract and will make a full-scale competitive bid.
Should I mention a budget?
It is in your interests to tell the consultants the approximate budget, both for a study or retained fee.
- It is virtually impossible otherwise for you to design a brief that is not capable of many different interpretations.
- The best consultant for the job is not necessarily the one who guesses correctly the value of input required.
- Some firms have limits below which they will work only on the basis of direct, non-competitive appointments. It could be wasting your time to ask for full-scale competitive proposals from several consultants for projects worth less than, say, £10,000.
How detailed should a brief be?
- Do not overload a study brief. The quality of the work will suffer if consultants are expected to do extra tasks within a limited budget. Aim for depth rather than breadth.
- It is wise to treat briefs as provisional and to be prepared to issue amendments to them. The process of liaison with consultants during the preparation of submissions often raises valuable fresh ideas. A rigid brief will produce a rigid and, possibly, unhelpful study.
How much time do consultants need to prepare a submission?
To obtain the best results from your consultants
- Allow a minimum of three weeks for the preparation of proposals. Consultants are not necessarily able to drop everything the day they receive your brief. The best consultants are usually the busiest.
- Have someone available throughout the period to meet the consultants and answer their questions.
- Circulating the answers: some clients take the view that any and all requested information should be circulated to all competing consultants. This can stifle innovation. If a consultant wants to pursue an interesting or new line, they should be encouraged to do so. They will be less likely to if other consultants are going to benefit too.
Will consultants wish to visit the site?
- Your brief should ideally include arrangements for consultants to visit the site (if appropriate to the project) before preparing their proposal. Many will want to do so.
- Make it clear if they can also meet you and obtain further background information.
Should I include interview dates in the brief?
- You will speed up the project if you let consultants know the likely date of interviews, even if they may not be short-listed.
- A choice of dates is helpful. Some consultants (especially the best) may have other important commitments on your chosen date.
- When you are consulting people's diaries to choose a date, don't forget the consultants themselves in this exercise.
Who should liaise with the consultants preparing their submission?
- If a multi-organisation team is appointing the consultants, one member should be given delegated powers to resolve questions that may arise and to give clear answers to consultants' queries.
- This should extend to the power to issue amendments to the brief and to the timetable - for example, from an oversight that only emerges when raised by the candidate consultants.
Interviewing and selecting the candidates
What selection criteria should be applied?
Your criteria will vary according to the project, its cost and duration but may include
- 'Technical' skills (is it about management structures, or governance, or e-marketing, etc)
- Relevant industry sector experience
- Track record and quality of referees' references
- Knowledge of the geographical area, if relevant
- Compliance with brief
- Quality of project management
- Is a fresh view needed, or ongoing experience?
- Price
- Timescale proposed
- Anticipated quality and clarity of reports
You will want to weight each factor appropriately in any evaluation of proposals.
What else is important?
The most important aspect of all is to find a consultant with whom you and your own team can achieve a constructive and cohesive attitude to each other for a common purpose.
Do I need an interview?
There is a school of thought that suggests interviews can be misleading; that presentation skills can mislead. Some organisations are now basing their choice purely on the written proposal. Such an approach also saves a great deal of time and expense for both parties.
- If there is a clear favourite amongst the written proposals, a preferred option would be to invite those consultants for a discussion, without commitment, prior to formal appointment. This will give you a chance to meet face-to-face and confirm that they are the right team for the job.
- If you do have to interview, do just choose those with a realistic chance of success.
How should the interviews be conducted?
The interview room ideally should be arranged in a welcoming style with consultants and sponsors sitting alongside each other around the same table. The aim should be to see how well you and the consultants could work together.
How long should the interview last?
The best is perhaps a 60 minute cycle
- 25 minutes for presentations
- 25 minutes for discussion
- 10 minutes for changeover.
Who should conduct the interviews?
- Ideally, not more than two or three people - all of whom are knowledgeable about the brief.
- Avoid the situation where interviews are conducted by people who have not undertaken their homework on the candidates and their submissions (or indeed on the brief itself) and who are relying on superficial impressions.
Are audio visual presentations a good idea?
Many consultants will wish to use audio-visual material. Candidates should be asked in advance if they wish to make audio-visual presentation and, if so, what equipment you will need to provide. You may wish to limit the amount of time allocated to formal presentations.
How can I be sure which actual consultants do the work?
Ascertain clearly with the senior consultant who you see at the proposal stage
- The level of his/her responsibilities and those of less experienced colleagues. To make full use of a firm's resources a proportion of your study may legitimately be undertaken by more junior personnel but, to avoid any misunderstanding at a later stage, the level of that proportion should be agreed.
- The senior consultant should also agree to inform you of any new staff or freelance associates being asked to join the consultancy team.
What about specialist sub-consultants?
We advise that you allow specialist sub-consultants to participate in more than one submitting team. Otherwise you may lose a particular expert because his or her team is not chosen.
Appointing the consultant
How should the successful consultant be appointed?
- This is best undertaken by a simple letter of appointment, clearly stating the agreed terms of appointment. The consultant should then confirm acceptance, also in writing.
- Lengthy legal contracts are not normal practice, and you may find it a time consuming process to reach agreement on a mass of details that try to anticipate every contingency.
Unsuccessful candidates
- It is courteous to inform them as soon as possible after the selection process has been completed
- Offer to inform them of what were seen as the strengths and weaknesses of their proposal/presentation
Working together to ensure the best results
What makes a good timetable for the project?
- Start date: most consultants cannot book time for your project until you have confirmed their appointment. There will thus probably be a short delay, say, two to three weeks before a proper start is made.
- Give your consultant as much time as possible to carry out a full professional job. Getting it right first time is probably more important than saving a few weeks.
- It is vital to agree a timetable for the project with the consultant, and for this to be flexible to cater for contingencies that arise during the study.
- Allow plenty of time for setting up meeting and interview programmes and conducting survey research. Consultees cannot always be available or respond as quickly as you would like.
What about meetings during the project?
- One costly element of a consultant's work is attending meetings. If you can keep these to a minimum during the project itself this will be beneficial to you and to the consultant.
- A schedule of organisations or persons to be consulted should, if possible, be in the agreed brief; otherwise it should be drawn up and agreed at the start of the work.
Reporting arrangements
What is the process for submitting the final report?
- Your consultant should send you a draft report, for comment and amendment if necessary, in advance of the final text.
- Ownership of the copyright of any new material produced in the course of a project should be agreed at the start of a project.
Should anything go wrong
Apparently irreconcilable disputes between Client and Consultant are rare. If they occur, it is in the best interests of both parties to resolve them as soon as possible. However, if such a dispute arises between a Client who has engaged a Consultant for the provision of services in accordance with these guidelines and a Consultant who is a member of the Tourism Society's Consultants Group, the Client may apply in writing to the Chairman of the Consultants Group who will review the matter in dispute.
- The Chairman may himself advise on the issue.
- The Chairman may appoint another individual to act as an informal mediator.
The objective will be to attempt to provide impartial guidance to assist the Client and the Consultant to resolve the matters in dispute.
Feedback
The Tourism Society's Tourism Consultants Network has prepared these guidelines and would welcome your feedback (Email Admin) on this advice, from both clients and consultants.
