| | By Mick James
It’s commonplace
these days to come
across services and
software companies but
quite rare to find
someone moving in the
opposite direction. But
that’s precisely what
Elizabeth Gooch has done
with her company, eg
solutions, originally
set up as eg consultancy
in 1988.
Gooch was inspired to
enter consultancy when
P-E Consulting did a
project at the building
society where she
worked.
“They kept getting my
old reports out and
using them but when I
asked them for a job
they said no,” she says.
“So I decided to do it
myself.”
Gooch originally
targeted industry, but
having had first hand
experience of production
management in practice
she decided to bring
production management
thinking back into
financial services.
“We think of people
as a production line
instead of letting
people dictate the | |
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| | process,” she says. “We
developed a software
solution and now we’re
eg solutions, an IT
services and software
company.”
And the consultancy?
“We do that free of
charge,” she says.
“Consultancy becomes an
excuse to sell
technology, so we do our
consultancy free of
charge as a diagnostic
to see if we can help
and what benefit we can
provide.”
After that, the
product is provided on a
fixed fee basis with a
guaranteed ROI.
“I’m equally against
the tech industry
developing technology
for technology’s sake
and not to solve the
client’s problem,” Gooch
says. “For every pound
they spend the client
needs three back.”
Gooch says her
financial services
background has helped
dictate this highly
pragmatic attitude. “I
know what it’s like to
be given a piece of
rubbish,” she says.
“Once we put in a new
till system where we | |
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| | found we had to iron the
money to get it into the
system.”
The other formative
experience was having
her ideas rifled by
consultants. “If
management had asked we
could have solved the
problem ourselves,” she
says. “There’s all this
intellectual capacity in
organisations. The
question is how to
harness that to deliver
profit by building
skills in people who
basically want to do a
good job.”
Up until 2001 Gooch
says she ran the
consultancy as a
lifestyle business but
realised that she had to
do something different.
“I was too personally
stamped on the business,
people would say I only
want to deal with
Elizabeth,” she says.
Floating the company,
she says, was the “best
thing we ever did”.
“The reason why it’s
been so good is that we
have been able to give
the staff share
options,” she says. “Our
staff turnover is 9% –
that’s mainly people who | |
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| | find the travel is quite
hard and go back to jobs
in the FS industry, but
generally two to three
levels higher.”
Although the work
involves consultancy,
Gooch says she tends not
to hire experienced
consultants. “We teach
people ourselves,” she
says. “Most consultants
you can hire don’t have
very good interpersonal
skills, they are either
very analytic or sales
focused and they cost a
lot of money. We hire
attitude and train
skill.”
An open mind is also
required. “You don’t
have to have an
immediate answer –you
need to be able to run
with a bit of chaos.”
Gooch says the main
change since the shift
from consultancy has
been an increased focus.
“We use the ‘f-word’ a
lot,” she says. “We’ve
grown by 28% per annum
by focus; previously we
were just ticking
along.”
To achieve its fixed
fee, guaranteed ROI
implementation, eg
solutions uses a | |
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| | standard implementation
model, but, says Gooch,
“it’s not one size fits
all, and every client
gets a tailored package.
The goal is to take the
client through a step
change so radical that
they cannot go back.”
Typically, eg
solutions will start a
project with a pilot
implementation and then
roll out division by
division. With 38,000
licenses in the
financial sector it’s
been remarkably
successful, and now
Gooch believes it may be
time to expand the
focus.
“We could go into
other sectors with this
approach and minor
modification,” she says.
“Working in financial
services gives you the
opportunity to look at
every different process
you could have, from
call centres to pension
administration.”
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