| | How much longer do
consultants have to keep
justifying their very
existence? The
Independent recently
devoted a double–page
spread to a rant about
consultants headed:
“They give us solutions
we may not need, systems
that may not work, at a
price we shouldn't pay,
in a language we don't
understand.” A familiar,
not to say hackneyed
complaint that could
have appeared almost
anywhere in the ‘80s and
‘90s, but shouldn’t we
expect more of a
national newspaper in
2005?
What astonished me
about this piece was its
sheer crudity. The
author, who claims to
have been a management
consultant, breathlessly
informed readers that
consultants who earn
less than £1,000 a week
can be charged out to
clients at £7,000 a
week: “few clients ever
do the simple
mathematics and ask why
they should pay more
than £300,000 a year for
a junior adviser who is
probably getting paid
only around a tenth of
that”. It’s probably
because few clients are
naïve enough to imagine
that consultants work
365 days a year and live
in a land free of
overheads. Yet still | |
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| | this nonsense is trotted
out.
To give him his due,
the author later
acknowledges that there
is such a thing as
utilization rate, but
that too is apparently
scandal: “executives'
bonuses depend on their
reaching certain
"utilisation" targets...
this means that 70 per
cent of their time must
be sold to clients,
whether clients have
problems to be solved or
not.”
The public sector has
long been a stick to
beat consultants with,
particularly if, as the
press is wont to do, you
fail to make any
distinction between IT
and consultancy
projects.
“Mandarins” are
apparently “easily
baffled by computer
companies ... with
high-pressure
salesmanship and
lobbying.” Would these
mandarins include the
likes of ex-Accenture MD
Ian Watmore, now head of
e-government? Would
Patricia Hewitt,
secretary of state at
the DTI and a former
head of research at
Andersen Consulting
count as one of the
“easily baffled”?
Lest you think this
is just an aberration by
the Indy, The Times | |
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| | represent
value-for-money. I’m
reminded of the
Conservatives’ manifesto
pledge to not only slash
£35bn from public
spending but to do so
while also cutting
consultancy expenditure
by a third. I also note
that cost overruns in
the public sector
attract condemnation
irrespective of whether
or not the financial
risk is borne by the
government or, as is
increasingly the case,
its contractors.
In this country it
seems we have an
appetite for change but
a distaste for change
agents. In any other
area of professional
life, an industry with
the growth record of
consultancy would be
feted. In the UK every
announcement of
increased figures by the
Management Consultancies
Association is treated
as a cue for national
mourning.
I was once asked, at
very short notice, to
give a speech to a
consultancy gathering on
the topic of “why I hate
consultants”. I was
replaced at even shorter
notice by a more
glamorous journalist who
apparently trotted out
all the usual clichés
about borrowing your
watch to tell you the | |
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| | time. I would have said
the thing I hate most
about consultants is the
way that they make bad
managers look good. When
I work with
consultancies to develop
case studies, the most
difficult thing is
trying to couch the
project so that the
client looks good as
well. All too often the
project is called off
because the client
simply doesn’t want the
world to know that the
turnaround in their
business came with
outside help.
Fortunately it's
becoming increasingly
common to encounter
clients who are proud to
have engaged
consultants, and who see
the success of their
project as an
endorsement of their own
skill as managers.
Management is often
defined as the skill of
achieving objectives
through other
people—it's time that
knowing how and when to
use consultants was seen
as a vital part of the
managerial skillset.
Contact Mick with
your views or
suggestions at:
mick.james@top-consultan
t.com | |
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