| | By Mick James
The Capita Group has
a well-established
reputation for
large-scale public
sector projects such as
the Congestion Charge.
What is perhaps
less-publicised is the
work of its management
consulting practice,
which recently won a
Management Consultancies
Association Gold Award
for Change Management
thanks to its work with
the Department for Work
and Pensions.
“Not many of our
rivals — if any — have
the breadth of advisory
services we have,” says
Martin Whiteley,
Managing Director of
Capita Consulting. His
consulting division of
120 people represents a
core which can draw not
just on the group’s
2,000 IT professionals,
but a far wider spectrum
of professional advisers
from architects and
quantity surveyors to
trainers.
“Because change
inevitably involves
people processes,
technology,
accommodation, new
learning and
development, we believe
that gives us something
unique about the total
offering in the Capita
group,” says Whiteley.
“We see many of our
consulting competitors
forming alliances and
partnerships to meet
these needs. But what
does the client want — a | |
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Whiteley believes
there is a crucial
balance to be struck
between how the
consulting group acts as
a stand-alone entity and
its relation to the
wider capabilities of
the group:
“We might be able to
provide an outsourcing
solution, that’s one
extreme, moving the
problem to an
outsourcer,” he says.
“At the other end you
can be very traditional,
sell your expertise,
leave that advice behind
and the client is left
with a series of
decisions as to how to
implement it. What I
think is interesting is
the middle ground. I
want to get Capita to
the point where we are
seen as the people who
can implement good
advice.”
While the Capita
Group is strongly
associated with public
sector work, it is in
fact very balanced
across its sectors, with
about a 50/50
public-private split,
The consultancy business
is not far behind, with
about 50 per cent public
sector work, 30 per cent
private and 20 per cent
supporting the Capita
Group.
In the public sector
Whiteley has noticed
that procurement is
getting sharper, with
government also becoming
more confident in the
use of niche consulting | |
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| | and interim management
providers.
To meet these
challenges Capita has
come up with a programme
called Capita Alongside
which can combine
advisory services and
also “parachute in”
operations managers
where necessary to
provide extra capacity.
Whiteley believes
that this approach
combines the best of
interim management with
the commitment to change
that comes from
consultancy.
As well as deepening
Capita’s penetration of
central government
departments, Whiteley
sees significant
opportunities in local
government - where
requirements are
becoming more
sophisticated and
varied.
“We’re seeing
straightforward
outsourcing agreements
being supplanted by a
more incremental
approach,” he says.
“There’s not an
immediate transfer of
staff, instead we’ll
work together on
specific issues such as
a shared service centre
and then identify the
next set of options, one
of which might be a
managed services
solution.”
Increasingly Capita
Consulting is taking the
expertise from these
assignments into private
sector assignments, for | |
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| | financial services, life
& pensions and even
retail clients.
“The skills we’ve got
are transferable across
sectors, we concentrate
on expertise that is
transferable,” says
Whiteley . “That’s why
people come and work for
us: they want both a
core set of consulting
skills and expertise in
different markets and
from working on a
variety of different
projects. People who
join often come across
after finding themselves
pigeonholed in local
government work or
whatever.”
Whiteley says Capita
Consulting is working
hard to create different
learning experiences for
its consultants and
working on the work/
life balance.
“Consultants
traditionally work a
long way away from home
and have very little
opportunity to influence
where they work,” he
says. “We know we won’t
retain people like
that.”
Whiteley says that
there’s been a “huge
amount of internal
effort” to improve
retention:
“Churn is just around
10 per cent and I’m very
pleased with that,” he
says.
Contact Mick with
your views or
suggestions at:
mick.james@top-consultan | |
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| | seamless interaction.”
Whiteley says he has
spent much of the year
working on the value
proposition for the
consultancy division.
“With most management
consultancy firms it’s
hard to separate out
what’s truly
distinctive, they seem
to all be using the same
words in the same
order,” he says. “Our
uniqueness stems from
our territory — how we
transform service
organizations, how we
make a real impact on
the operational
functions of any
organisation we work
with.”
He adds that the
roots of Capita are in
consultancy:
“Capita began as a
consultancy, and that
transformational IP sits
in the consultancy
business.”
This also affects the
type of people Capita
recruit, says Whiteley
“We don’t recruit
graduates, but people
with a combination of
advisory and operational
experience,” he says.
“We don’t want to train
people on the job: we
want them to have
empathy with our clients
and to understand the
practicalities of
change.”
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