| Mick James talks to Tony McNeill, B2E Resourcing managing director, about the future of the interim consultant as a management consultancy business model. |
| Economic uncertainty could deliver a new management
consultancy business model |
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| | By Mick James
As we venture deeper
into the uncharted
territory of the
recession, it is becoming
clearer and clearer that
consultancy will be
playing a vital role in
helping clients adapt and
change quickly enough to
cope in very difficult
conditions. But what of
consultancy itself? What
new models will emerge to
cope with the changing
nature of client demands?
One firm that believes
that it has tapped into a
new trend is B2E
Resourcing, which is
developing the notion of
the “interim consultant”
–a flexible consulting
resource that dovetails
into the increasing
ability of clients to
plan and direct, but not
necessarily staff, their
own change projects. This
leads to a demand for
consulting skills, but
not necessarily the
overhead that comes with
them from a traditional
consulting firm.
B2E Resourcing is | |
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| | itself an outgrowth from
just such a firm–B2E
Solutions, which was
formed by ex Big Five
consultants in 2001.
“We knew we didn’t
want to do ‘friendly
co-pilot’ consulting,”
says B2E Resourcing
managing director Tony
McNeill, who previously
worked for Accenture and
Watson Wyatt.
Contact with alumni
groups such as Excenture,
a group for ex-Accenture
and Andersen Consulting
employees, enabled B2E to
build up a substantial
network of former
consultants from major
consultancies, which in
turn piqued the interest
of clients.
“We had a number of
meetings with clients who
basically just wanted the
consultants, but needed
help with the
‘bodyshopping’,” says
McNeill. “What clients
wanted was individual,
independent consultants
to go in and work on an
interim basis with no | |
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| | supervisory input from a
consultancy.”
The reason this model
is feasible is because of
the large number of
ex-consultants who now
find themselves working
in industry.
“Since 2003 a lot of
people have been shaken
out of consultancy,” says
McNeill. “Clients now
want to find some
‘workhorse people’ who
can work around them and
do the heavy lifting.”
This change on the
client side has been met
by an increased supply of
consultants who are
leaving major
consultancies at a junior
level.
“More and more people
are seeing the path to
partner extending and
extending, and are
thinking, ‘I must be
mad–I’m slogging my guts
out and at the end of it
I’m only going to be on
£150k’,” says McNeill.
Continued on page 16 | |
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