Business consultants are subject matter experts in the workings of business dealings and are hired by governments, corporations, non-profits and many other types of businesses. For most of these businesses, profit maximization is the objective. For others it’s achieving a social entrepreneurship model, or perhaps impacting a larger number of people for non-profits.

Business consultants can play a valuable role by rationalizing the decision-making process in the early stage of intelligence gathering. Outside experts offer fresh perspectives and revitalize change and transformation efforts. Business consultants help rationalize decision-making through their knowledge and training.

To better understand how the role of experts plays out, it’s useful to consider three phases of decision-making: intelligence, design, and choice. In the intelligence phase, experts can bring knowledge, data, and experience to bear as they identify and investigate policy problems. In the design phase, they can apply their knowledge to design, analyze, and evaluate alternative courses of action, ideally with impartiality. In the choice stage, experts can steer leaders away from whim, impulse, and other biases, ensuring that decisions emerge from an appropriate deliberative process after weighing pros and cons of the alternatives.