Maximizing the Value of Consulting

Chapter 13Converting Data to Money

If it's not a number that the client understands, does it mean much? Most of today's leading consultants are learning that the answer is “no.” Money is something that a client clearly understands. Transforming or converting data into monetary values is an essential step in a consulting assignment. Many consulting projects stop with a tabulation of business results. While these results are important, it is more valuable to convert the positive outcomes into monetary values and weigh them against the cost of consulting to develop the ROI. This is the ultimate level in the five-level evaluation framework presented in Chapter 6. This chapter explains how leading consultants are moving beyond simply tabulating business results to developing monetary values used in calculating ROI.

Consulting project results include both tangible and intangible measures. Intangible measures are the benefits directly linked to a consulting project that cannot or should not be converted to monetary values. These measures are often monitored after the consulting project has been completed. Although they are not converted to monetary values, they are still an important part of the evaluation process.

Importance of Converting Data to Monetary Values

The answer to this question is not always clearly understood by some consultants. A consulting project could be labeled a success without converting to monetary values, just by using business impact data showing the amount ...