I have experienced the triangle model in one of my
organizations for the last two years as part of a consulting RSO on campus. In
this model, my team and I are the agent while the two principals are the RSO
and our client. Consultants have the opportunity to explore various areas of
business development and digital design. Our teams work closely with clientele
to understand problems and formulate solutions that will best fit their
business needs. Our RSO is dedicated to developing and offering the best
solutions to our clients for their business needs. To consult new ventures, an
organization must understand today’s principles of startup development and the
life cycle of a modern start up. Well established or new to the game, our
RSO tends to approaches each client with a fresh, innovative mindset. We are
creatives and business specialists alike.
On a weekly basis, it is our job as consultants to decide on
what direction to take our research, conduct that research, and then meet with
our team. We then determine what research is useful and whether it is within
the scope of our project. After that, we narrow down the research, create
slides, and provide a deliverable every week to present during our client call.
After we present, the client provides us
with feedback and we decide what direction to take the project in for the next
week.
An example of when tension can arise in this organization is
in terms of how research is conducted. If our team has done research on X field
and has found some information that may be useful or help our client achieve
their goal, then we may approach the client and suggest that the project is
taken in another direction. However, the client may not always agree that this
is the case. The proper way to go about this is to state our argument and provide
support for it and if the client still does not agree, then we must go their
way because it is ultimately their business. Additionally, sometimes the senior
leadership team of the RSO may feel that the client’s goal is out of a team’s
scope or beyond their skillset and may result in a similar outcome.
Another potential scenario relates to the client’s
satisfaction levels. If the client is not happy with the deliverables
throughout the semester, they may decline to pay the RSO. Even though this may
not occur, it is very possible considering that RSOs are run differently than
real consulting firms. One semester, our
client was completely unresponsive to us and halfway through the semester
decided not to pursue the project even though we had put in countless hours of
work doing research (based on what we believed was important for the project
even though he did not guide us).
Another one of your classmates also wrote about working for a consulting organization. But he didn't say it was an RSO. I wonder if they are the same organizations or different.
ReplyDeleteIt would help in me understanding your post to ask why a client would use your RSO rather than pay a professional consultant. In your post you talked about the time you put in on a client's project. But what about the expertise brought to bear? If all of you are students, with limited work experience, how can the research you do nonetheless help the client? Perhaps there are certain situations where the experience doesn't matter much and student consultants are nearly as good as professional consultants. If so, can you identify those circumstances.
It also may be that cash flow for the client matters. I can imagine that a client who is short on cash "stages a little nutty" to renege on the agreement, even if the research your group does is okay. I don't know that it happens, but it seems to me a possibility. So I wonder whether the client has to pay a retainer up front, just to commission the work, and to not leave too high and dry.
The last think I'll comment on is that research doesn't always produce useful results even when the research is careful and well done. Or the research produces results that say - don't go into a certain line of business because the chances of success are very low. So I wonder if there is some pressure on being more creative than what the research shows, so the client will find the results useful, at least near term.
The benefit or using an RSO vs a professional organization is mainly due to the cost. We charge significantly less. In terms of time commitment, I will admit that the hours were a bit much and it probably did take us longer since we don't have professional experience. The projects we were assigned to were usually based off of our personal interests as well as our major in school, so that played a role in how we could contribute to the project. For example, we had a project recently that was supposed to be mainly data analysis and market research and ended up taking a turn towards databases and coding languages. This was out of my scope of knowledge, but thankfully we had a CS student in our group who helped us with the research. Since we aren't professionals, usually there would be a scope that we could handle without work experience. Additionally, the research wouldn't always line up. In my last project we provided information for the client that they wouldn't be able to use until next year when they plan to launch a new website. They do plan to use our recommendations and show them to the coder that they will hire.
DeleteIt is interesting that you are able to write about your RSO in so many of the post. This makes me think that this RSO is very professional and is a quality organization that can give you many work experiences you might face in the future. It seems like a benefit to be apart of it and has given you multiple real life experiences.
ReplyDeleteThe method of clients coming to your RSO and you all producing work for them like a professional company sounds like a similar RSO my friend is involved in on campus. Her's is an advertising RSO, so I'm assuming it's not the same one. I think these kinds of RSO are great because they give students professional experiences working with real clients.
I think there is definitely a balancing act between the client and your RSO, but if the clients are not happy will they go to a professional company and leave the RSO? or is there a contract between the client and the RSO?
A question I have is if your RSO and your clients agree on some sort of contract to ensure payment and expected results? Or does it just go in a handshake type of agreement? This would be a way to go about ensuring both ends of the deal are met even though for some cases the results by your RSO may not be satisfactory.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I wonder if there ever are some cases where your RSO rejects to consult because they believe that there is insufficient research to be conducted. Honesty would be a way to avoid a scenario of the client not paying if there is no contract in place.