| | By Mick James
There are many ways
to cut the consultancy
cake, and many of them
have more to do with
historical than any sane
approach to the market.
I’ve yet to see a
stand-alone consulting
firm try to buy a chip
manufacturing plant or
set up an audit
division, for instance.
PA Consulting Group
has one of the more
unusual takes on the
market, with a
consulting front end
backed up by a
substantial technology
and innovation
capability. This
strategy has worked for
25 years and it remains
a crucial part of PA’s
market strategy, as Nick
Hughes, PA’s global head
of Life Sciences and
Healthcare, explains:
“PA is not an
accidental construct,
it’s the result of an
act of will to operate
in particular
marketplaces,” he says.
“PA’s genesis in the
1940s was in the
organisation and methods
techniques which later
translated into much
more sophisticated
tools. Now we provide a
complete set of
consulting services from
the boardroom to the
factory floor.”
This unique take,
Hughes believes, puts PA
into the “sweet spot of
strategy and business
consulting. We describe
ourselves as a
management, systems and
technology consultancy,”
he says. “We know enough
about technology to
create solutions that
really work as our | |
| |
| | or avoidance of
dispensing errors. The
technology is being
developed by a venture
subsidiary, Aegate. A
previous venture, the
drug delivery technology
company Meridica, was
sold to Pfizer last year
for $125m.
“PA has a very
risk-hungry view on the
market; we’re taking
bets and investing not
inconsiderable sums in
our ventures portfolio,”
says Hughes.
The confidence with
which these bets are
placed stems not just
from PA’s technological
resources but also the
much wider view it takes
of the global pressures
on the pharmaceutical
industries. These feed,
not just into the detail
of areas such as supply
chain, drug discovery
and diagnosis, but also
into much wider
projects.
“For example, we’re
involved in healthcare
reform in Eastern Europe
and for that you don’t
need to know science,
you need to understand
the geopolitical
landscape. Increasingly,
PA is working in
integrated teams where
consultants from
multiple practices are
seconded to work in a
“virtual sector
practice” with industry
specialists.
“We have access to a
huge conflation of
talents and many of
these skills are
eminently portable from
sector to sector,” says
Hughes.
PA’s current focus is
as much the result of
recent history as its | |
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| | early roots:
“We survived the
recession because we
were – relative to the
big 5 – smaller and more
agile with top quality
consultants” says
Hughes. “Building on
these foundations, our
ambition is now to take
on work of strategic and
national importance in
the pharma and
healthcare sectors,
amongst others.”
“We have learnt a
huge amount from our
colleagues working in
the government sector,
where they are leading
the way.” Their approach
has taken PA from being
a mid-tier player in the
government sector (“Then
- if we won a £1m
contract we’d bring out
the bubbly” says
Hughes), to being the
largest operator in that
sphere. Increasingly it
means that PA is also
getting the pivotal
programme management
roles in the consortia
that public sector
clients now demand.
“Our programme
management and change
management work has
given us a reputation
for delivering
challenging projects
under difficult
conditions. Where we’re
different in the
marketplace is that
we’re more than capable
of delivering a
gold-plated SAP solution
but where we tend to
excel is in the delivery
of complex programmes
rather than simply
packaged solutions.”
One area that PA
steers clear of is the
provision of outsourced
IT services, preferring | |
|
| | instead to advise on,
and run, the outsourcing
and change management
process, and manage the
subsequent supplier
relationship in order to
ensure the business
benefits for clients.
“That’s partly
because we don’t have
the appetite or the
balance sheet but partly
because of the ethical
conflict,” says Hughes.
“We won’t buy someone’s
IT and sell it back to
them because of the
impact on the
client-consultant
relationship.”
The importance of
relationship-building
means that PA looks for
what Hughes calls
“T-shaped” consultants:
“The leg of the T is
that deep knowledge, the
bar of the T is all the
other things that they
bring to the party, such
as interpersonal
skills,” he says. “The
best consulting is done
with clients, not to
clients. They want to
know you have an
opinion—they don’t want
it rammed down their
throats.”
Related link:
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All views expressed
in this article are
those of Mick James and
do not necessarily
reflect the views of
Top-Consultant.com and
Consulting-Times.com
Contact Mick with
your views or
suggestions at:
mick.james@top-consultan
t.com | |
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| | clients need them to. If
you can’t make things
fast enough or cheaply
enough we can understand
what you’re trying to do
and say, let’s build it
together from a blank
sheet.”
This “real tangible
consultancy” often goes
beyond simply reacting
to client needs into
taking leadership
positions in research
and development.
“We’re a little ‘R’,
big ‘D’ organisation; we
combine emerging and
existing technologies in
extremely creative and
pragmatic ways to
deliver novel client
solutions ” says Hughes.
“PA also takes
innovative positions to
address unmet market
needs.”
One example is in the
life sciences area,
where PA has taken its
own line on the use of
RFID chips and barcodes
to counter drug
counterfeiting. Rather
than attempt to use RFID
to track the entire
supply chain, PA has
created a system where
drugs are given unique
identifiers and
registered with a PA
database. Then these
drugs are dispensed, in
the pharmacy or
hospital, and scanned
using PA-designed
technology, to confirm
their authenticity. This
system also facilitates
other opportunities such
as manufacture recalls | |
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