Consultants. What you should fear

Consultants can help any business improve its operations and bottom line, but one must remember, just like any other profession, they are in the business to make money. Not for their client, but for their own firm. And if a consultant should land a client that has senior executives who, for the most part, are hardly able to run a cost center much less a company, than the consultant has just found the proverbial gold mine.
Consultants will come in under a specific request by a client for a specific job or assignment. If an employer is not use to working with consultants, than some will take advantage and "expand" their domain or assignment into more aspects of the company than originally planned. Consultants, like attorneys, are kept on board by THEIR firm based on billable hours. If they get a client who has little experience with certain consultants, bingo, the proverbial vein of gold has just been struck.
Yes, I experienced consultants with prior employers. Have both good and bad histories with these firms. Yet if you have not had this kind of experience, as one of my employers did, than the gold mine opens up and money is thrown out the door. As one executive once said: "If we spent all this money for a consultant to tell us how we should improve an area of our business, than we might as well go ahead and try it their way." That is good notion. In other instances, I've seen consultants come in, provide recommendations after several months of work, and basically management ignores the recommendations, or at best, makes cosmetic changes just to say they got their money's worth.
Yes, it is best when hiring a consultant to make sure both sides understand the clear level of the assignment, make it specific, and made damn sure that any deviation from that assignment has sound basis to move forward with the additional cost. And once the consultant provides recommendations, make sure the executives read it and implement what is necessary. If not, the employer has not only wasted the dollars, but has admitted to the employees, who have gone through months of uncertainty and tepid fear of the potential changes, that the company really was not serious in making the necessary changes to their organization. If it was important to make the investment, than expect to make the needed changes to move the company in a more positive direction. Would you buy a new car and just keep it in the garage?
Same with recommendations. But changing one's logo or putting posters up are hardly worth the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent. Believe me, I've seen it happen.
Part 2 on how consultants can be a terrorists within your company.