Needless to say, China's clothing management consulting industry also has some problems that are not suitable for the rapid development of the industry. This paper will analyze the subject, object and environment of management consulting.
(A) the main body of management consulting-clothing management consulting institutions problems
1. The clothing industry lacks experienced consultants.
Clothing management consulting industry belongs to "intellectual service industry", and the biggest bottleneck factor restricting China's clothing management consulting industry is the talent problem. Of course, some clothing consulting institutions, especially senior consultants, are of high quality. They have a profound theoretical foundation and rich practical experience accumulated in the clothing industry for many years. The consulting projects completed by these people are of high quality, high efficiency and strong operability, which have been recognized and praised by garment enterprises. However, it is undeniable that there are also some clothing consulting institutions with low overall quality and lack of theoretical knowledge and practical experience.
In fact, many garment management consultants lack systematicness in theory, unable to understand and analyze the current problems of garment enterprises from a theoretical height, unable to tap the internal relations between various management phenomena and problems, and unable to give forward-looking strategic planning from a theoretical height. As a result, their consulting plans are often superficial and superficial, like a king of ideas. On the other hand, a considerable number of consultants lack the practical management experience of garment enterprises and do not understand the reality of garment enterprises, which makes the consulting scheme that should be very operational become dogmatic. Although management knowledge is universal, if the industry personality is ignored, this universal knowledge will often be divorced from the reality of clothing enterprises. Therefore, clothing management consultants must supplement themselves through continuous learning, improve their original experience, think theoretically and solve problems with experience in every link of management consulting work.
2. The overall service level and customer level of clothing management consulting industry are not high.
At present, the overall service level of China clothing management consulting industry is not very high. In addition to companies with international background, most of the clients of consulting companies are mainly small and medium-sized garment enterprises, and their business areas are mainly focused on primary consulting services such as marketing training, brand cultivation and product agency, and less involved in higher-level consulting services such as enterprise strategy, information decision-making and long-term solutions, and even less involved in the operation of garment enterprises as a "foreign consulting" giant.
On the other hand, although consulting companies with international background have generally served international fashion brands, most consulting companies do not understand the operation of international clothing enterprises, nor have they participated in and implemented these operations. The discovery of the problem comes from comparison. For these consulting companies, their work experience mainly comes from many small domestic clothing enterprises or other industries, and they are not as successful as the most successful international clothing brands. Therefore, it is difficult to get the essence and discard the dross for domestic garment enterprises to do management consulting. Therefore, the overall service level and customer level are not high, which is a serious problem.
3. Some companies lack self-discipline and professional ethics.
Some clothing management consulting companies do not pay attention to their own promotion and experience accumulation, but fabricate their performance through publicity and hype. In fact, no matter how much fancy publicity is done, the most critical issue is what kind of service and help can be provided for clothing enterprises. If there is no strength to provide valuable consulting services for enterprises, then this kind of publicity and speculation can only bring short-term profits.
Some consulting companies specialize in providing services such as strategy, product planning, marketing and internal management for clothing enterprises. This is irresponsible to the enterprise. No one is perfect, so it is hard to imagine that a consultant can handle all aspects of management consulting. A more international management consulting process should be adopted to ensure that experienced consultants in professional fields participate in all aspects. There are also some consulting companies that will make irresponsible exaggerated promises to clothing enterprises in order to win contracts. This not only violates the law that management consulting is a knowledge-intensive industry and management is a soft science, but also makes garment enterprises have unrealistic expectations and even fantasies about management consulting, which damages the image and reputation of consulting companies.
(B) the object of management consulting-the problems existing in clothing enterprises
1. Clothing enterprises lack understanding of management consulting.
It is an indisputable fact that many garment enterprises in China have a low start and lack the quality of managers, which also causes a considerable number of garment enterprises to have insufficient understanding of management consulting. Most garment enterprises don't know much about what problems management consulting can solve for garment enterprises and how to solve these problems. They don't know what they need to consult, nor do they know which company to choose to provide consulting services.
Of course, with the change of the market, clothing enterprises are more and more aware of the promotion of marketing strategies. Now many garment enterprises believe that learning can improve themselves and is very important for enterprise reengineering and sustainable development. Many managers also realize that many problems encountered in the operation of clothing enterprises really need the help of the outside brain to solve. This is a good trend.
2. Clothing enterprises expect too much from management consulting.
Management consulting can't have immediate effect, because it needs a process of promotion, acceptance, implementation and internal teamwork, and it needs the interaction of products, teams, brands, technologies, markets, capital and other factors. Management consultation is different from clothing production, which can be shortened by efforts, and its effectiveness must be proved by practice.
However, a considerable number of garment enterprises have high expectations of management consulting, which makes the role of management consulting a myth. It is expected that management consulting will solve all the problems of enterprises immediately, which will easily lead to a certain sense of loss after cooperation.
3. Clothing enterprises' own resources and quality defects have affected the effect of management consulting.
Objectively speaking, there is a big gap between domestic clothing industry and foreign countries in fashion, industrial chain, management and operation mode, which requires the improvement of clothing-related industries, not just consulting industries. Dialectical materialism tells us that it is internal factors rather than external factors that determine the essential changes of things, and external factors can only play an influential role. Consulting company is the external brain of clothing enterprises and the external cause that determines the growth and perfection of clothing enterprises. It just tries its best to help enterprises with its knowledge, experience and management operation mode. In fact, whether the consulting program can achieve the expected effect depends not only on the quality of the program itself, but also on the degree of effort, leadership and command ability, the degree of program implementation and other factors. Most clothing management consulting companies have this experience. The higher the quality of managers, the larger and more mature the garment enterprises, the higher the success rate of cooperation between consulting companies and them.
(C) Management consulting environment-problems in the market system
Lack of corresponding laws and systems to regulate the management of the industry is the biggest problem in the market system of management consulting industry in China, and clothing management consulting industry is no exception. At present, there is no complete consulting law in China, and some consulting activities can only be constrained by economic contracts. However, because management consulting has obvious soft science characteristics, it is very difficult to verify the contents of some terms in practice.
The entry threshold of consulting industry is low, and there is a certain asymmetry between the current publicity system and credit evaluation system in China, while the external constraints are few and the punishment cost is very low, which leads to the rapid expansion of domestic consulting companies and then leads to vicious competition in consulting industry. Its direct consequence is the decline of consulting quality and the distrust of enterprises in consulting. When the whole clothing industry is booming and the funds of enterprises are relatively abundant, this kind of consultation with certain moisture can be accepted by enterprises; In the contraction period of clothing enterprises, the first thing that may be cut off is consultation. And the winter of domestic clothing consulting industry may come ahead of time in the self-expansion of the industry.