Impact of Consulting Service on Project Outcome

Abstract

The world spends billions of dollars on IT and IT-enabled Services. Significant Percentage of IT Initiatives fail. Most large IT initiatives engage external consultants. This study attempts to address the following questions - What are the parameters for measuring project success /failure? Does the consultant contribute to project success /failure? Will enhancing the level of consulting service lead to the minimization of chances of project failure? The following approach was used for the study. Existing theories and up-to-date literature was reviewed to arrive at factors contributing to consulting service quality. Existing theories of service quality and literature were studied to arrive at variables to measure project success. Various theories and models were analyzed to arrive at a working model for the current research. Inputs received from senior managers in the industry were considered. It was decided to do the study in the context of ERP implementation, one of the most complex IT projects. Following independent variables were identified as measures of consulting quality – Knowledge, communication, and reliability. The dependent variables identified as a measure of project success were time, cost, quality, user acceptance. The study was done in 2 phases – the solution development phase and the solution deployment phase. Primary data was collected from over 250 respondents in response to the survey with questions. This was supplemented by in-depth interviews conducted with 12 senior consultants /managers with over 18 years of experience each across geographies. Data was collected using the Likert scale. Partial Least Square -Structured Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was used for statistical analysis.