That is so typical for majority of vendors and the company you work for is irrelevant - I have seen that behavior from all major IT vendors and it is not culture or location specific.
I get away with it frequently but not always. You can't imagine how many times I got response 'nobody ever asked that'.
What I usually do when that happens is to do one case of their work entirely myself to show a complete working example in real life scenario. That requires certain knowledge about domain in question. I have experience in bunch of tools, platforms and paradigms so I know how to do it about 70% of the time. When I don't, or don't have time for it, I just let it go.
But no matter your position, its very probable that your voice will be listened over that of a vendor consultant so if you can educate your boss with WHY (if not, you could go higher or try to influence someone else who can influence the person you want) there is a chance that your words will be taken before that of the external consultant.
I get away with it frequently but not always. You can't imagine how many times I got response 'nobody ever asked that'.
What I usually do when that happens is to do one case of their work entirely myself to show a complete working example in real life scenario. That requires certain knowledge about domain in question. I have experience in bunch of tools, platforms and paradigms so I know how to do it about 70% of the time. When I don't, or don't have time for it, I just let it go.
But no matter your position, its very probable that your voice will be listened over that of a vendor consultant so if you can educate your boss with WHY (if not, you could go higher or try to influence someone else who can influence the person you want) there is a chance that your words will be taken before that of the external consultant.