consultant survey report

7/28/2019 Consultant Survey Report

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9 The Hill Ct Woodford 3281 [email protected] M 0428 109 372

New Zealand Consultant

Capability Survey

Summary report produced on behalf of Dairy NZ

Prepared by Sean KennyPrincipal Consultant

Lighthouse Consulting


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Table of Contents

Background ....................................................................................................... 3

Survey Design and audience ......................................................................... 3

Results................................................................................................................. 5Demographic Information ..................................................................................................................... 5Nature of consulting business............................................................................................................... 7

Focus areas for consulting work......................................................................................................... 9

Client engagement ................................................................................................................................. 10Referral and networking behavior................................................................................................. 12

Preferences for professional development.............................................................................. 14


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Background

As part of the New Zealand dairy industrys strategy to improve the

profitability, sustainability and competitiveness of New Zealand dairy farming,it has been recognised that farmer access to the necessary quality and

quantity of advisory support is a critical element. Target 12 arising from the

strategy addresses this theme, stating: Professional standards and availability

of farm business management capability (advisers and farm managers)

improving from June 2012.

In response to this DairyNZ has sought to work closely with and support the

New Zealand Institute of Primary Industry Management (NZIPIM) as the

professional body that sets and maintains standards of the farm management

profession in New Zealand. A business case has been put to and acceptedby NZIPIM to revise their Registration system and establish advisor

accreditation in core areas of expertise. A report on baseline registration of

dairy farm consultants as of December 2011 has also been produced. In

addition a train the trainer programme funded jointly by Government and

DairyNZ under the banner of Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) is established

and working toward describing minimum knowledge standards, accreditation

protocols and devising training programmes in order to recognise and bolster

advisory capability in core areas of expertise.

This report reviews baseline capability of dairy farm consultancy in NewZealand as of May 2012. Its purpose is to both establish a baseline against

which we can track future progress against a range of indicators, get a

pointer on what dairy farm consultants themselves see as the needs for their

own training and identify areas where farmers are asking for advice and

where they believe farmers should be focusing in terms of advice.

Demographic data on age and level of experience of farm consultants are

an important backdrop against which to assess future needs to build a

sustainable age and experience distribution of consultants. Client data can

be used to estimate the number of farms seeking consultant services andconsultant referral behaviour tells us something about consultant culture and

challenges there might be in ensuring farmers are referred to experts as

envisioned by the NZIPIM business case.

Survey Design and audience

A list of 214 dairy consultants was drawn together from DairyNZs CReaM

database. This list was crosschecked against the NZIPIM database and by


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each of DairyNZs regional leaders for their regions. The survey was structured

into six main sections:

1. Demographic details

2. Nature of consulting business

3. Focus areas for consulting work

4. Client engagement

5. Referral and networking behavior

6. Preferences for professional development

Participants were sent an e-mail link to the web-based survey and given 7

days to respond. After seven days a private survey company was contracted

to follow up participants. The survey was left open for further 2 weeks. On

completion a total of 120 responses were received for the survey which

represents a response rate of 56%. The breakdown of responses to the phone

follow up is provided below:

Asked for link to be forwarded 5

Refusals 35

Did Not Qualify 6

No answer 32

No phone number 40

Said they will complete online 7

Had already completed online 48

Completed via phone 41

The full survey is included in appendix 1.


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Results

Demographic Information

The age distribution of the survey respondents mirrors many others in

the agricultural sector. 49% of respondents are over 50 and 75% over

40. This stands in stark contrast to the age profile of the general

population in New Zealand where only 40% are older than 45. This

could suggest that either people come to consulting later in their

careers, or that the cohort that underpins the consulting sector is

ageing. With regards to gender, the consulting profession is

overwhelmingly male with only 19% of respondents being female.

Experience within the population would suggest that whilst segments

within the profession are ageing, there is a good pipeline of

consultants working through the ranks. Whilst 42% of respondents have

more than 15 years experience, a healthy 38% of respondents had

been consulting between 1 and 6 years.


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More than 70% of respondents identified either farming (32%) or student

(41%) as their role prior to becoming a consultant. Banking and

veterinarian were identified by 9 people respectively as their role

when prompted to identify options that werent available.

The consulting profession is well educated with 79% of respondents

having achieved degree level or higher. 97% had a diploma or higher.

51% of respondents are members of NZIPIM with 18% being registered.

This equates toa registration rate amongst members of 34%.


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Nature of consulting business

For the vast majority of respondents, dairy consulting was a significant

proportion of their business. Working directly with dairy farmers

constituted more than 60% of their business amongst 68% of

consultants. This heavy focus on 1:1 engagement was also highlightedby the percentage of business that was identified as project work.

72% of consultants said that less than 20% of their work was project

based.

There was quite a spread amongst consultants with regards to the total

number of dairy farmer clients they saw each year. 73% of

respondents saw less than 40 individual farmer clients per year with 12%

seeing more than 60. Such a spread is most likely due to the diverse

nature of businesses surveyed (see focus areas below).


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With regards to business structure, the dominant form was sole trader

and fee for service. The other large representation was for company

partner/investor. The partner/investor response was more than half

that for sole trader and may provide some indication of the level of

consolidation and alliance development over time as a part of natural

business evolution. There are also encouraging signs around the

employment of consultants within the larger firms with 37% of

respondents identifying themselves as employees of a company. This

highlights the scope for ongoing mentoring and professionaldevelopment in the profession and the development of a core critical

mass through means other than sole trader enterprises.


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Focus areas for consulting work

The key focus areas which have a high percentage score for both

most of my time and some of my time were:

Whole farm system integration

Animal management

Grazing management

The next tier was:

Financial management, and;

Farm business strategy

When questioned as to which areas they would like to be spending

their time, the only categories that saw a noticeable shift between

actual and desired were financial management and farm business

strategy. These focus areas had a shift in response for most of my

time from 30% to 41% and 27% to 40% respectively. These areas

therefore represent the areas that consultants feel clients should be

more focused on. The other categories remained relatively stable

suggesting a level of contentment with the focus of consulting work.


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Client engagement

The purpose of this section was to get a feel for the relative emphasis of

consultants on the relational and technical side of farm decision

making. Overwhelmingly respondents identified relational elements asbeing the key starting point for discussions around major changes.

Over 70% felt that a discussion around why robots and life goals would

be the best place to start on exploring this hypothetical situation. This

suggests a strong focus on the need for context in farm decision

making. This was supported by responses to the question around how

they would know when they had the recommendation right for their

client. Over 80% said that it would only be after many discussions and

scenarios and developing plans that balanced the goals of the farmer.


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Further to this, when asked to rank the most important aspects of being

a good consultant, networks and ability to think on the run came out

on top. When asked to suggest other attributes than those listed, more

than 70% provided suggestions. Of these the term listen appeared in

20, communicate 14, understand 13, and people 11 times. Taken

together this data highlights the critical importance consultants place

on what we would call people skills. It also highlights the need for

professional development programs to invest in both the technical and

people skills of advisors given the strong perceived link between the

later and successful consulting.


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Referral and networking behavior

The question around referral behavior highlighted that the majority of

consultants prefer to deal with client enquiries in house. 70% of

respondents would seek out information and support to help informtheir own responses to client challenges beyond their skills. The key

areas of referral identified by consultants were:

1. Dispute resolution and mediation2. Compliance3. Farm infrastructure4. Dairy farm conversion project management

The least likely areas were:

1. Grazing management2. Whole farm system integration3. Animal management


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Preferences for professional development

When asked about preferences in delivery style for professional

development the standout responses were 1 day technical seminarsand formal training and professional development. The other options

were relatively evenly spread with the exception being webinars and

technology based approaches which had limited support.

Overwhelmingly, time was seen as the biggest limiting factor to

participation in professional development activities.

consultant survey report

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