IMCSA membership and its code for consultants
What membership of South Africa's IMCSA involves for consultants and coaches, what its code of conduct means for clients, and how to keep the papers.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Consulting businesses in South Africa
The words "management consultant" on a business card say very little on their own. For a client choosing between advisers, it can be hard to tell an experienced practitioner from someone who has only just started out. For an established consultant, it means competing on the same footing as people with no track record at all.
Professional bodies are one way of drawing the distinction. For management consultants and coaches in South Africa, the body that describes itself as setting the standards is the Institute of Management Consultants and Master Coaches of South Africa (IMCSA). This article looks at what IMCSA says about itself and its members, what that means for clients, and how a consultancy can keep its membership and engagement paperwork in order.
Who IMCSA sets standards for
IMCSA describes itself as the professional body that sets and maintains standards for business advisors, business rescue practitioners, management consultants, and business, executive and leadership coaches in South Africa. It says its mission is to act as the certifying body for the management consulting and master coaching professions.
That covers a wide range of practice. A turnaround specialist, a one-person strategy adviser, a firm running leadership programmes and an executive coach may all fall within its reach. IMCSA's website sets out its role, membership and the services it offers to members and to clients looking for an adviser, and is the place to check current membership categories and requirements.
Graded by skills and experience
IMCSA says its members are graded according to skills and experience. For a client, that grading is a starting point for questions rather than a final answer. A grade tells you how the body assessed the person; it does not tell you whether they have done work like yours.
For a consultancy, grading gives a way to show progression to clients and staff. A junior consultant's path through the grades can sit alongside the firm's own development plan, and a senior grade can support the firm's claims about its leadership team in proposals. Keep the evidence, because a client or a tender evaluator may ask for it.
The Code of Professional Conduct
IMCSA says its members must abide by a Code of Professional Conduct. The value of a code to a client lies in three things: that it exists, that the adviser has agreed to it, and that there is somewhere to go if the adviser falls short.
A client engaging an IMCSA member can reasonably:
- ask for a copy of the code, or where it is published;
- read the sections that matter most to the engagement, such as confidentiality and conflicts of interest;
- ask the adviser how a concern about conduct would be raised with the body.
A consultancy that belongs to IMCSA can do the client the favour of answering those questions before they are asked, in the proposal or the engagement letter.
Finding a consultant through the referral database
IMCSA also keeps a client referral database of consultants, searchable by skills, industry experience and location. For a client, that is a way of building a shortlist of people who meet the body's standards, in the right field and the right part of the country.
For a consultancy, the database is a reason to keep its listing accurate. If your skills, industries and locations are out of date, the database works against you: the clients most likely to need you will not find you, and those who do may be disappointed.
What clients should ask of any adviser
Membership is only part of the picture. Writing in the Harvard Business Review's September-October 1982 issue, in an article titled "Consulting Is More Than Giving Advice", Arthur N. Turner made the case that clients should understand better what a consulting assignment can achieve and should demand more of their advisers. Much of what is spent on consultants, he argued, pays for impractical data and recommendations that are poorly implemented.
That argument suggests a set of questions any client can ask, member or not:
- What exactly will we have at the end of the engagement, and how will we use it?
- Who will do the work day to day, and what is their experience with problems like ours?
- What do you need from us, and by when?
- How will you help us implement the recommendations, not just present them?
- Which professional body, if any, are you accountable to, and under what code?
A consultancy that writes the answers into its statement of work makes the client's job easier; what a consulting statement of work should pin down covers how.
Engagement terms and membership papers on file
Two kinds of paperwork follow from all this: the engagement terms the client signs, and the membership records the firm may be asked to show.
In Achekam, any document can be sent for electronic signature with signature and initials fields placed on it, signers in order or all at once, an expiry and reminders. The signed PDF and a completion certificate are filed back into Documents. You can send an uploaded PDF, a document composed from text blocks with merge fields, or a saved template, so a standard engagement letter that mentions the firm's professional memberships can be reused for each new client.
Document Centre is a folder-based store where you upload files or whole folders, then preview, download, rename, move, tag, archive and search them, and a new version keeps the earlier ones. Keep a folder for professional memberships, with each consultant's membership confirmation and grade. When a membership is renewed or a grade changes, upload the new confirmation as a new version, so the history is there if a tender or a client asks when someone qualified. Where several firms or advisers work for the same client in different capacities, appointing firms in different roles explains how to keep the arrangements clear.
If you are a client, ask your current advisers which body they answer to. If you are a consultancy, check your IMCSA listing and membership papers this month, and bring both up to date.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
