Depending on the size of your company, you may already have people doing the types of work listed on the previous page, or may be considering adding staff to work on these projects.
However, it may make sense to work with an outside consultant for the following reasons:
Objectivity of an external opinion may be desired.
Sometimes important analysis can fall under political pressure within a company, influencing the results. This influence need not be direct, and in fact can be quite subtle. It can be as simple as an employee not wanting to present an analysis that contradicts a prior analysis. There are times when an objective analysis is absolutely crucial to making important decisions.
Regular operational requirements on internal staff may limit the ability to focus on some of these issues in the way that a consulting engagement can.
Work of this type is commonly delegated to staff to take on in addition to other, more regular, duties. While this may seem to be an easy solution to a short term need, often other work suffers, the project is not completed on a timely basis, or companies face employee burn-out. Also because much of this work is being done for the first time, employees may have a difficult time getting started if they are accustomed to performing only well defined processes.
Highly specialized skills may not be required on a full time basis.
Many of these analyses are required infrequently. To add staff capable of performing the work, only to use these specialized skills and expertise part of the time, is an inefficient use of their time and your money! Hiring a consultant to perform this work for only the time required is more efficient.
Cyclical nature of the property casualty business gives added attractiveness to outsourcing staff.
There are times when it is advantageous to shrink operations temporarily, particularly in a business with extreme profitability cycles. An outsourced resource can be utilized less, without the financial costs and organizational disruption that accompany the elimination of staff. This can make weathering a downturn in the market easier.
