| Consulting firms are often criticized for not applying to their own businesses the advice they apply to clients' businesses. Should a consulting firm should be led by an outsider, an executive who can bring experience from beyond the world of consulting? |
| Edengene take their own medicine and splice in some managerial DNA |
| |
|
| | By Mick James
When I first started
writing about the
consultancy business
over a decade ago I had
two very interesting
conversations. The first
was with the head of a
major consultancy firm
who explained that the
reason most consultancy
firms were so badly run
was that their leaders
had little interest in
running a business but
would rather be on the
road consulting to
clients. The other was
with the then head of
the Management
Consultancies
Association, who
asserted that
consultancy could not be
counted a mature
industry until it
started appointing
non-consultants to
management roles. I also
noticed at the time that
the structure of the
industry was highly
polarized between large
and small firms — it
seemed almost impossible
to grow a consultancy
beyond a certain point.
Fast forward ten
years and not much has
changed. Consultancy is
one of a vanishingly
small number of
industries in which it’s
common for firms to be
run by people who’ve
worked there all their
lives, and growth
remains a major | |
| |
| | models to market by
working in a
cross-disciplinary way
that owes as much to
advertising and
marketing as traditional
consultancy models.
“We’ve created a new
category,” says Thorne.
“The question is now how
we lead that category
rather than just being a
few smart people who
have a niche.”
Thorne realized that
it would be next to
impossible to combine
the task of taking
Edengene beyond its
current size and do
serious work with
clients. It also became
obvious that the right
person to grow an SME of
around 50 people into
something larger was
unlikely to be found in
a group of consultants
whose skill and
motivation came from
working with large
corporations to develop
multi-million pound new
products.
Instead, Edengene has
appointed an outsider,
Chris Robson. Chris was
formerly CEO of internet
business solutions
provider Syzygy, which
successfully floated on
the German Neuer Market;
before that he was new
business director at
advertising agency
DMB&B.
“Chris is not a
management consultant | |
|
| | but he has built up
people businesses and
also has expertise in
creating and developing
new categories,” says
Thorne. Managing
consultants has been
likened to herding cats,
but Robson says he is
looking forward to the
challenge.
“I do like managing
and growing people
businesses,” he says.
“People in different
kinds of service
companies tend to view
themselves as unique
animals but they
actually have quite a
lot in common.”
As an outsider,
Robson has been able to
take a much broader
perspective on what
Edengene does and where
the next level of growth
will come from.
“It’s this whole
issue of the category we
want to grow,” he says.
“All consultants will
say they’re involved in
growth to some degree.
We’re in the business of
growing top-line revenue
— this is business
that’s very tangible.”
Robson accepts that
growing a medium-sized
consultancy business is
a tough nut to crack.
“Medium sized
consultancies all suffer
from the peak and trough
problem,” he says, “You
need to build longer
term revenue streams, | |
|
| | you need a structure for
people to grow with.”
This requires focus:
consultancies often lose
this as they grow and
become more and more
amorphous pursuing
short-term revenue
opportunities.
“You need to be clear
about where you want to
play,” says Robson.
“Edengene has
specialized in
conceiving and
developing new products,
services and business
models. There’s a
greater chunk of work in
renewing existing brands
and products, and also
meeting the needs of
clients who already have
their own ideas for new
products.”
Edengene has taken
DNA from the worlds of
consulting, marketing
and technology and are
attempting to forge of
new form of life. It’s
an interesting approach
in a market where, as
Tim Thorne points out,
advisers are
increasingly shaped not
by client problems - but
by the procurement
process they face. As
Chris Robson says:
“Who are we up
against? In my view we
have very few direct
competitors — but
hundreds of indirect
competitors.”
| |
|
| | challenge for
small-to-medium firms.
Could all these
things be related?
Edengene, a small but
rapidly growing firm
that specializes in
helping large companies
innovate, seem to think
so. The firm has just
gone through a
remarkable management
evolution which has seen
one of the founders step
down as CEO in favour of
a new leader from
outside consultancy.
“We’d gone through
the typical growth curve
of a start-up,” says
outgoing CEO Tim Thorne,
who’s returning to
client work. “We’re now
at a plateau — to grow,
the business needs a
step change in the way
we manage ourselves. We
realized we were not
going to grow unless we
had an outside injection
of senior talent — it’s
the sort of thing we
tell out clients.”
Nor is this merely
about Edengene joining
the ranks of the
medium-sized
consultancies. Edengene
has built up a track
record of helping
clients bring new
products and business | |
|
|
Previous Page 
