And, because of their proximity, clients will more readily invite decentralized staff into their planning processes. Indeed, it makes good business sense to do just that, but only within one of the professions within a function. Dedicating staff to clients is only appropriate for those professions where the primary expertise is knowing the clients, and where technical depth is unimportant. The Customer-intimacy Profession Somehow, a function must not only provide specialists in its various technical domains, but also must include generalists in its product line who are specialists in the clients' business. The job of Consultants is to understand clients on behalf of a function, and earn partnerships by ensuring that the entire function contributes to its clients' missions and strategies.
Consultants are the primary client liaisons who represent the entire function to the business units.
They know a specific group of clients extremely well, and understand their strategies and critical success factors. They work with key clients to identify high-payoff opportunities for the function's products and services. And they ensure that solutions are tailored to business units' unique needs. Consultants are specialists in their clients' business, and generalists in the function's product line. The rest of the staff, on the other hand, specialize in technologies or methods, and design solutions or operate services for any clients who might need them.