wzalyfpa.info

This article discusses the Consulting Presentation Framework. All business strategy and management consulting firms, such as McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and Booz Allen, use presentation frameworks. By and large, they are all variations of the same concepts and design. Since consulting firms are notorious for developing structured and pretty slides, the Consulting Presentation Framework represents the optimal way to structure and present your information in the form of a PowerPoint presentation.

It involves very specific rules for font faces, font sizes, type of grammar rules to follow, and so forth. If nothing else, adopting and religiously sticking to the framework will vastly improve the look and professionalism of your slides.

Over the years, I have come across a number of different of these presentation frameworks from the various firms I worked for. Borrowing from all of them, the framework presented in this article is an amalgamation of the components I felt worked best.

Now, let’s dig in.

On a typical content slide, there are 3 core components: the Headline, the Body, and the Bumper.

The Headline

The Headline sits on top of the slide. It is a sentence that introduces the slide. Many people use this space for the ‘title’ of the slide. In this framework, the ‘title’ will go into the Body (described in the next section).

The Headline should be Arial Narrow, font size 24, and boldfaced. Do not use any ending punctuation (e.g. no period).

As mentioned, it is a sentence and 1 sentence max. It is also not to exceed 2 lines. If you find it to be longer, then reword and shorten your Headline. If the Headline is any longer than 2 lines, your audience will get lost and/or bored. As you go from slide to slide, the sentences in the Headlines should connect to tell a cohesive story for your audience to follow.

The Body

The Body is the bulk of the slide. It contains all the colorful content (e.g. textboxes, diagrams, etc.). Everything you put in the Body should build upon what has been introduced in the Headline. All text within the Body should be Arial font. The minimum font size to use is size 10, because any size smaller (using Arial) is too difficult to read for most people. This is especially true if you are projecting your presentation.

On the top left of your Body, you should have the Title of your slide. The Title is what people traditionally put in the Headline area. It’s a short phrase that categorizes what the Body is illustrating. Examples include ’6-Phase Approach,’ ‘Objectives of the E-Book,’ ‘Strategic Hierarchies and Related Challenges.’ As you noticed, the capitalization follows that of a book title (per the MLA). The Title should be Arial, font size 16, boldfaced, and italicized.

If you have any numbers or any information on your slide that needs to be sourced, be sure to do it. The source should appear in a text box on the lower left of the Body. It should be Arial, font size 10, and begin with the text “Source:”. Consultants use number of different methodologies and frameworks to structure and design content for the Body. We will not discuss these other teachings within this article.

The Bumper

All consulting firms have this last component, but may call it different names. Deloitte & Touche calls it the Take-Away, A.T. Kearny calls it the Tombstone, and Capgemini Consulting calls it the Kicker.

The purpose of the Bumper is to address the “so what?” question your audience may have. Whereas the Headline provided an introduction and context to the slide, and the Body embellished upon that message with clarifying details, numbers, diagrams, and so forth, you run the risk of your audience thinking, Okay, this information is interesting, but so what? Why do I need to know this? Why should I care?

Those are all fair questions and ones you should answer with the Bumper. If you cannot think of anything meaningful to put in the Bumper, ask yourself if you really need to have this slide in the deck. In other words, if the slide doesn’t offer any additional insight that’s important for your audience to know, why include it all? Of course, there are many valid reasons to have a slide without a Bumper. For instance, the slide just presents the agenda, is a transitional slide, or only is to provide key contact information. Sometimes, they slide is purely to present raw data.

The Bumper is in the form of a light colored box at the bottom of the slide. It should be Arial, font size 14, boldfaced, and italicized. Unlike the Headline, it should have ending punctuation. Like the Headline, it is only 1 sentence and 2 lines max.

To make things easy for you, I’ve created a PowerPoint template that conforms to this framework for you. You can download it here: http://learnppt.com/downloads/sampletemplate/.

Among small companies, enlisting IT consulting services can be one step to enhance business competitiveness in a cost-effective way. Tapping the assistance of consultants is becoming a popular alternative to maintaining an in-house department of information technology professionals.

While the costs may initially appear as quite an investment, employing IT consultants can actually provide remarkable value for money. It allows the company to access specialized skills, but under a very flexible setup so that the terms of the agreement meet its budget and particular needs as an organization.

Companies may hire the IT experts on an as-needed basis, and the latter can act very much like regular IT staff, troubleshooting and doing system checks from time to time. They may also be tapped to handle maintenance of their client’s computer hardware and software system and networking for a more long-term partnership, or to oversee particular projects such as establishing a VMware solution, or installing a new server. Other IT consulting companies offer their knowledge to those who need expert advice in procuring equipment, or in the setup of data archiving system.

The key to achieve maximum benefits from what may be a considerable amount of investments in IT consultants would be to execute every measure as part of a strategic plan, whose main goal is to promote a company’s standing in terms of technological capability. At a time when being technologically advanced is fast becoming the name of the game, IT consulting truly is a worthwhile option to look into, especially for small businesses.

There is a very big difference between a mentor and a consultant. And if you really don’t understand let me enlighten you on a few of the realities of both. A mentor is someone who has been the where you want to be, years the prior, and they now have the experience and wisdom to share with you to help you get through the same pitfalls along the way. If you have someone that you look up to as a mentor, but they’ve never actually done it themselves, then that person is more of a coach than a mentor.

When it comes to consulting, most consultants that have larger firms as clients are really there for the executive management team to cover their butts. That is to say, a consultant comes in and blesses their decision and they have someone to blame if things don’t work out. Interestingly enough, large corporations and executive management teams are willing to pay a lot of money to consultants that will prove them right.

When it comes to smaller businesses and closely held companies, consultants are often looked at in a different light. The entrepreneur, business owner, or small management team of a closely held company is interested in results, but their particular group perhaps does not have the experience in one or two areas that they need to, in order to move forward. They don’t wish to bring another person onto their management team for something that might be temporary, therefore they will hire a consultant.

You can see how mentors, coaches, and consultants are completely different from one another. And then there is the Virtual CEO. This is usually a retired CEO, that doesn’t want to get involved in all the shenanigans of running a company, or have all the stress, but they like being in the game so to speak. They’ve been there and done that, and they didn’t particularly like all the bureaucracy and headaches, but they do like running things, and they know exactly what to do.

Where did the title of Virtual CEO come from? Well, this is Randy Komisar’s title; he is Virtual CEO and has a business card to prove it. He is an invisible CEO who helps out the president and CEO of a large tech company. He is in the background, not in the limelight and helps make the decisions that the current CEO is either uncomfortable with making, or has never made before, and therefore needs a little assistance. Interesting concept isn’t it?

Businesses within the food industry have strong imperatives to become certified to a Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) benchmarked standard. Under the Food Safety Modernization Act, the FDA is enforcing compliance with standards. Likewise, USDA requires meat, egg and poultry providers to comply with industry standards. Even retailers (like Wal-Mart and Costco) are now requiring their suppliers to become certified to a GFSI-approved standard. Teaming with an experienced food safety consultant is the easiest and most economical way to achieve a certification.

Here are eleven ways a food safety consultant can help businesses in the food industry:

1. Consultants provide seasoned expertise without having to increase your payroll.

2. By conducting an onsite “gap analysis,” a consultant can quickly identify what must be accomplished to achieve a GFSI -approved certification.

3. They can help you select the best GFSI-benchmarked standard for your unique situation.

4. They can help you present the benefits of GFSI certification to senior management and explain the implementation process.

5. Your food safety management team will receive onsite training from certified experts.

6. They will help you identify and establish acceptable procedures to overcome food risks.

7. Consultants will help your team prepare required documentation for a certification audit.

8. They will conduct a “pre-certification audit” to ensure your business is ready for the real thing.

9. They can be an advisor during your certification audit, assisting you in quickly dealing with any discrepancies.

10. Consultants can provide ongoing expertise to ensure your management system remains in compliance and is prepared for follow-up audits by certifying bodies.

11. If one of your products requires a recall, a knowledgeable consultant can assist in crisis management and brand protection.

Food companies that are already certified to an industry standard may wish to upgrade to a GFSI-approved standard as a means of complying with new regulations, retailer requirements or expanding their market.

Numerous deadly outbreaks over the past years, such as e. coli and salmonella, have created a groundswell of demand for enhanced food safety processes. Sound business policies now require food providers to mitigate their liability by reducing food safety risks. Investing in an outside expert to evaluate current operations, help your company decide which standard best suits its needs, then working onsite with your team to prepare for a certification audit is a prudent business strategy.

Similar to utilizing inexpensive cloud-based solutions on the Internet, “renting” food safety expertise to train in-house personnel makes more sense than adding an expert to the payroll. Knowledgeable consultants can streamline your path to GFSI-approved certification, reducing liability risk and providing a solid foundation for subsequent business growth.

Key performance indicators are comparable to your business partners. They can help you succeed and can aid you whenever there are business troubles that are taking place. However, the development of the KPIs is a problem themselves. This is especially true for those who are not familiar with this type of indicator. Since they are busy persons, the usual solution here is to seek the help of KPI consulting services. This is also a tricky one because you have to make sure that the company that is offering you with such service is dependable and worth your money. Therefore, before you make a deal with them, you have to make a research first about that consulting organization and consider looking at their experiences, knowledge or skill and their customer feedbacks.

KPI consulting involves giving you the proper pieces of advice that you will need when it comes to the selection, creation and implementation processes of the key performance indicators. These are all necessary when it comes to the building of the KPI. There are some companies that provide BSC consulting together with KPI consulting. This can help you save in the cost of the services since you will be able to improve your scorecard and your indicators at the same time.

When you sign up for key performance indicator consulting services, there are some things that you will be able to achieve. This is of course with the help of the professional and knowledgeable person who will give you the advice, recommendation and analysis. Most of the time, you will be asked to provide some information about your company and the consultant will make a research about which indicators matter in your business. This is an important phase since you will be using these indicators from then on. Of course, you can make adjustments and even update the sets of indicators from time to time.

Now, when you have chosen the right company that will provide you with the consulting services of the key performance indicators, you can expect that they will help you step by step. There are some organizations that provide trainings and seminars with regards to the KPIs. If you think that you need such, you can enroll in this kind of service. On the other hand, most of the companies provide recommendations about the right indicator that you should utilize.

You will be coached on how the indicators will help you and how you can improve them on your own. You can review your goals and make necessary changes or modifications so that it will not be hard for you and your employees to reach the main goal of the company. Every level of the business will be able to determine which among the indicators should be used so that they can be motivated to perform their jobs in accordance with the objectives of the enterprise.

KPI consulting is also useful for those who are in the stage of project planning as well as with those that are conducting feasibility studies, business development and technical auditing.