Warm up

I. Read the quote and say: if there is any truth in it; how important the role of a consultant in business is.

“Consultants are people who borrow your watch and tell you what time it is, and then walk off with the watch.”

Robert Townsend

II. Would you like to be a consultant? Why? / Why not?

Active vocabulary

Companies use consultants for many reasons. Match the sentence halves to discover a few of them.

Note: two verbs that are often used for making suggestions or proposals are suggest and recommend. Look at the following examples:

We recommend changing the dates.

We recommend that you change the name.

We suggest using the Internet.

We suggest that you use the Internet.

Other expressions:

How about changing your job?

Have you considered changing your job?

What if you change / changed your job?

We'd like to propose that you invest ?9,000.

Reading

Read the story about the consultant, the shepherd and sheep. What conclusion can you make, analyzing a consultant’s work?

Once upon a time there was a shepherd. He was standing by the side of the road, looking after his flock of sheep. Suddenly, a brand new Cherokee Jeep appeared and stopped near the shepherd. A young man wearing a Hugo Boss shirt, Yves St. Laurent trousers and Nike trainers got out and said to the shepherd: “If I can guess how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one of them?” The shepherd looked at the man, looked at his sheep – who were eating grass peacefully – and said: “Yes, OK then.”

The young man parked his car and took out his laptop computer and a GSM phone. Then he logged on to a NASA website and scrutinized the local area with the help of a GPS (global positioning system). Next, he created a database and 60 Excel tables full of statistics. After that, using a hi-tech micro-printer, he printed a 150-page report. Finally, he turned to the shepherd and said: “You have 1,586 sheep in your flock.” The shepherd replied: “You are absolutely right, I do have 1,586 sheep in my flock. Now you can take your sheep.”

The young man took a sheep and put it in the back of his Jeep. When he had done this, the shepherd said: “If I can guess your profession, will you give me my sheep back?” “Yes,” said the young man. “You are a business consultant,” said the shepherd. “How did you guess?” asked the young man. “Three things”, said the shepherd. “Firstly, you came here when nobody asked you to. Secondly, you charged me a sheep to tell me what I already knew. And thirdly, you have no idea what I do, because you took my dog, not a sheep!”

From In Company Intermediate

Listening

I. Bruston Bicycles and Cycling Accessories Ltd is in trouble. Sales were 15% down on last year. It is losing clients. Three of its best sales people left the company in the last two months. To find out what's going wrong, Bright Ideas Ltd, a business consulting group, visited the company a few days ago and made the notes below. Read the notes and then discuss the different problems with your teacher. In your opinion, which are the three most important issues, and why?

Bright Ideas

· Sales and Production – only monthly meetings

· staff is not given enough information

· products old-fashioned – a design manager left a year ago – not being replaced

· company doesn’t use internet at all

· name of the company!

· sales manager obviously overworked – covers national and export sales – no assistant

· John Bruston – managing director – 79 years old, a son of the founder

· Reputation for top quality, but delays of up to a month in deliveries