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Why integrity matters?
Especially for Consultants
Singapore Consultants Landscape
In Singapore business landscape, the governments gives pretty generous grants to assist SMEs and MNCs to improve business. This is usually through automation, productivity and overseas expansion. Such gives rise to a unique sector, known as “Grant Consultants”.
This area have a mix of good and bad consultants, with many aiming for a hit-and-run cases. The grants tend to change and sometimes, be removed totally due to government priority. Few manage to make the cut.
Consultant Integrity Issues
Just had a chat with a fellow associate, who is a grant consultant.
He referred a client to a Branding consultant, for the purpose of easy reference, we just call him A, for a Vietnam PR project. My associate have been working with A for a period of time till date.
The arrangement is usually a referral fee from A to my associate, which is normal since it is not possible for a consultant to cover all the business consultancies areas.
For the meeting, that branding guy brought another guy, who is grant consultant, (called Z) into the meeting.
And the typical goes where Z up-sell, cross-sell etc on all the possible grants, behaving more like a salesman than a true professional consultant.
Lessons Learnt from this
The client was unhapppy with the meeting, called my friend and rejected working with A and Z.
And my friend banned A, the PR consultant thereafter.
Why?
A have been aware of the fact that my associate does grants-related work for more than 5 years.
By introducing Z into the meeting, it means my associate is prioritized below that of Z, where Z will gets the business deal, and the rest of what’s possible.
And the worse part is Z is already partially banned, as he have failed to deliver on other previous projects.
So in the end, A lost the deals and all the subsequent ones, with his name in the unwanted circulation list, together with Z.
The Singapore consultancy field is small and words spread fast.
Lessons: Don’t undercut others, karma bites in multiple folds. #trustpro
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Anyone who wants to know the names of these to-be-avoided consultants, PM me.
It will save you money, time and effort.