[sandworm101]

Do you want to create your own product or do you want to consult?

My customers are sick of consultants who are really just pitch men for products, products they probably do not need. When i consult i openly say that i am not tied to any product, that while i do suggest and evaluate products i never accept comissions. That's pure consulting. The client comes first.

The other type of consulting is to offer consulting services as a way of getting your foot in the door. These are the people that bid low (or free) with the goal of selling product later. I dislike this approach. I find it dishonest and so do my clients.

[intrasight]

That is one of the big challenges to consulting these days - trying to be "independent". In every IT space there are consultants that represent products. They get a lot of consulting leads from the product companies, and in return they are always looking for opportunities to plug a product. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that - IT consulting doesn't happen in a technology vacuum. In fact for a new consultant there is probably no better "network" then the product network. For example, I'm doing more and more cloud computing consulting. It probably would make sense for me to join the technology partner networks of Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.

[sandworm101]

Much depends on the type of consulting. I do legal stuff, mostly compliance and privacy issues. Hypothetically, if someone asked me which cloud service best complied with a new EU data directive I would recommend one. I might be wrong. Maybe that cloud wasn't the best. Everyone makes mistakes. But if i make that mistake and my client finds out I was taking a kickback from the cloud I recommended, then it doesn't look like a simple mistake. Now it is negligence. That sort of consulting is different than more technical work where the real issue is whether a recommended service or product functions as expected.

A common request of me is to recommend a pen-testing or scanning service (pci, iso, dfars and such). I often write out requirements and even negotiate pricing for such clients. Any kickback whatsoever would be a disservice.

[intrasight]

Consultants resell the products from Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. The client will know that the reseller is getting a cut. It's not a "kickback". I would doubt that these cloud vendors could even offer a "kickback" (but then again, I could be naive).

But I do get your point. There are several types of IT consultants:

1. Those that help choose a vendor. They should be independent.

2. Those that hold a vendor's feet to the fire. I would claim that a good reseller could still do that.

3. Those that are really just outsourced warm bodies of the vendor. Don't expect much if any independent thinking.