| | By Mick James
Over the last couple
of decades the shift
towards services has
been so pervasive that
the news that this or
that company is growing
its services side or
adding a consultancy arm
barely raises an
eyebrow. This has
particularly been the
case in IT, where
creeping commoditisation
has driven more and more
companies down the
services route, in
search of deeper and
more rewarding
relationships with their
client base.
As Kevin Alcock, CEO
of Morse, points out:
"It all logically makes
sense, so you have to
ask why haven't more
people done it and made
it work?"
Morse has arguably
made one of the longest
and furthest journeys
down this route.
Starting out in the
1990s as a value-added
reseller for the likes
of Sun, HP and IBM, it
progressively built up
its services side,
culminating in the major
acquisitions of
specialist management
consultancy CSTIM in
2004 and ERP specialists
Diagonal in 2005.
But the final
repositioning of Morse
as a professional
services firm was only
completed this year when
the group demerged from
Monitise, a mobile | |
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| | banking venture. The
demerger enabled Morse
to focus on its own
future as a professional
services firm, which, as
Alcock explains, depends
very much on the
internal transformation
the company has
undergone as on its
history:
"We've engineered the
business from the
top-down – most
acquisitions in the
consultancy space have
been bottom-up," he
says. "It's much more
difficult going
top-down, but there's no
point in having an
aspirational vision and
strategy when your
operating model doesn't
fit – it all has to be
aligned with the
business strategy.”
The ‘One Morse’
strategy has been led by
a core leadership team
of about 30 ‘partners’.
"The idea there is
not to recreate the
legal or audit
partnership model," says
Alcock. "It's more about
the concept of
partnering to pursue the
strategic objectives of
Morse as a whole, which
cuts across industry
groups and makes them
work together. It's a
challenge to get out of
that silo thinking,
particularly in a
business which is
brought together by
acquisition, however
we've made some good
strides in breaking down | |
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| | these silos and getting
people working together
across the business."
The new concept of
Morse is a company with
a "stack" of
capabilities –
management consulting,
applications and
infrastructure – which
can be deployed
separately or together
to solve clients'
problems.
Although the firm
still retains deep
capabilities in
infrastructure, and
retains strong
partnerships with both
hardware and software
suppliers, it now sits
client side with a
strong emphasis on
advice and support,
rather than in a
procurement role.
"We can seamlessly
link from advice about
the business through to
operating model design
and how that sits on
infrastructure – we've
had some very successful
assignments that cut
across all those areas,"
says Alcock. "But we
still retain the ability
to deliver the product,
that's an important
difference from other
consultancies. There are
some parts of a number
of firms we admire and
would like to extract,
but ultimately we're not
like them – none of them
touch infrastructure."
With the Monitise
venture now responsible
for its own investment | |
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| | funding, Morse has a lot
more free cash flow to
fuel its growth.
However, the immediate
concern is more about
getting the shape of the
business right than
ramping up headcount.
"We don't need to
grow at 25% per annum,
we only need to grow in
single digits," says
Alcock. "What's more
important to us is that
our operating margin
goes up. We're looking
to double our operating
profit in the short
term."
This will come
through extending
Morse's reach both up
and down its "stack" of
capabilities in multiple
dimensions, adding
execution work to its
consultancy assignments
but also increasing the
advisory element in its
applications and
infrastructure work. In
a different dimension,
Morse will be looking to
build on the strength of
its consultancy offering
in its strongest
vertical, financial
services, and develop
its foothold in other
verticals such as media
and communications (in a
fourth vertical, public
sector, Morse is not
looking to build out a
consultancy offering but
concentrate on
application and
infrastructure
opportunities arising
from the Government's
transformation agenda). | |
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Morse will continue
to make selective
acquisitions and is also
recruiting for the
individuals with the
deep content knowledge
that can drive the move
towards greater value
added assignments, while
also developing and
enhancing the talent it
already has.
"One of my first
appointments was a human
capital manager, a good
talent management
programme is absolutely
crucial," says Alcock.
According to Alcock
the key to the "new"
Morse is cohesion, not
just across the business
in the UK but also in
the worldwide network of
offices that account for
about a third of its
1,500 staff.
"We've got to create
a willingness within the
organisation for a more
open way of working," he
says. "To get best
practices you've got to
be prepared to work both
across the capability
stack and across
cultures. I'm not saying
we have all the answers,
but we're now clear
about where we want to
play and what we want to
build up."
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