Business Consultants-Helpful or Harmful?

Overall, I'd say consultants are a good thing to have because they can offer an unbiased view of your company and help you think of ways to improve that you may never have thought about. They may also suggest changes that will not work as they envision and could cause more damage than good. Just because they make a suggestion doesn't mean it's the best idea for your company.

That being said, I wish consulting firms weren't so driven to provide some sort of suggested improvements. It's very possible that the current procedures are working the best for all involved and there is nothing wrong with saying that you have no suggestions. Consultants don't always know what's best for each company.

Case in point, the purchase of CMC by 5th 3rd Bank.

BACKGROUND: 5th 3rd purchased CMC in January 2006. In July 2009, Fifth Third sold 51% of the CMC/Fifth Third Processing Solutions brand to Advent International. In 2011, the new company became known as Vantiv.

We were assured at the beginning that nothing would change and this was being done to provide CMC with more capital so it could continue to function effectively, as is. Boy, did that change fast.

5th 3rd decided to bring in an outside consulting firm, The LoBue Group, to review the processes in the CMC office and the OH office where similar jobs were being performed. The goal was to see how we could mesh our servicing so we could help each other leverage call center coverage, skills, etc. At least, that's what we thought the goal was.

During every visit from a LoBue consultant we were told how impressed they were with our people, our processes and our technology. Even saying that ours was better than the OH office on several occasions. We expected that our servers would merge and both sites would begin to handle the activities of the other to provide the needed back up in the event of disasters, vacations, etc. We were in for a rude awakening.

Instead of being told we were going to start learning new systems to prepare for the merge, we were told that our jobs were being sent to OH and we would have to go there to train our replacements. Imagine our surprise as many of us had been with the company for 10+ years and loved our jobs. Most of us were in no position to relocate our families so the majority of us are now unemployed. Some for over a year and some since the end of 2010.

As far as I know, none of us have been able to find a replacement job. We've been blackballed, it seems, because of our affiliation with Fifth Third Processing Solutions and the amount of time we stayed with the same company. Seems odd that tenure would be considered a bad thing but there is no reason why any of us should have been rejected for call center positions unless some black cloud was hanging over our heads. Several of us have been flat our rejected for bank teller jobs, which would be a piece of cake with our experience, without even getting a call.

The blame for this cannot be placed entirely on the consulting firm; however, their suggestions led us down this path and I can't help but be a little jaded against them.