| Start up consultancy achieves notable success in public sector procurement |
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| | By Mick James
One of the themes
we’ve been exploring
recently in Top
Consultant is how the
upheavals of the past
few years have created a
new wave of
consultancies, as
practitioners from
former firms have gone
it alone to start up new
entities with fresh
approaches to
consultancy. These new
firms have found an
enthusiastic audience
among clients who are
increasingly willing to
experiment with new
names, and often these
firms are filling highly
profitable gaps in the
market which have opened
up as the big
consultancies have
reorganised themselves.
Another trend we have
noticed has been the
rise of procurement
consultancy as the ideal
answer to clients who
wish to improve their
bottom line performance
without either cutting
into resources or losing
control of key
processes.
A consultancy that’s
neatly combining these
two trends was formed in
early 2004 by ex- KPMG
partners Martin Wilson
and Robert Garner – its
aim: to address areas of
the market they believed
had been abandoned by
mainstream
consultancies…
“The major | |
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| | to build up a
substantial presence in
public sector work,
growing from two to 35
people in the last two
years, and aiming to top
40 in the autumn.
Avail is part of the
Tribal Group, which
provides venture capital
backing and
infrastructure to a
number of organisations
which focus on the
public sector. Avail
works for both central
and local government
with a strong presence
in health as well as
security and justice.
Solution areas cover
strategy and business
planning and performance
improvement, but supply
chain solutions and
partnering services make
up about 60 per cent of
the firm’s work.
“Supply chain work is
high volume but lower
value,” says Joe
Stringer, Avail’s
director of consulting
in supply chain.
“Partner services are
one-offs but involve
tens of millions of
pounds per contract.”
One area where the
firm has scored
considerable success is
in the creation of
collaborative
procurement hubs for the
NHS under its supply
chain service excellence
programme. Rather than
pursuing an outsourcing
approach, the hubs
approach is more of an | |
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| | “insourcing” model,
bringing private sector
procurement skills into
a fragmented market
“It’s about joining
up the gap between local
level and the national
bodies,” says Stringer.
“They’ve been going to a
shared services model
but without creating job
redundancies if anything
it’s involved
recruitment.”
Procurement in the
NHS is to say the least
a sensitive area, but
the move to a robust
procurement model has
been given added impetus
by the financial
deficits now faced by
many trusts. Better
procurement is one of
the few ways the trusts
can make the necessary
savings without cutting
back on clinical care.
Stringer believes
that the success Avail
has had in winning these
projects stems largely
from its own resourcing
model, which brings with
it unique insights into
those front line
clinical issues.
“Real advantage we’ve
found is that we bring
the clinical experts as
well-without those
clinical experts you’ll
never get through the
door,” he says. “When we
go in we have a
pharmacist and a GP with
us—not to win the
argument but to be in it
in the first place.”
This according to | |
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| | Garner will be the core
of Avail’s future
success:
“We’re growing the
business by bringing
together three core
skill sets,” he says.
“The first is career
consultants, people who
understand the
consultancy process. The
second is people with
best practice industry
expertise derived from
working with blue chip
companies in supplies
management. Finally
there are the people
with public sector
context knowledge and
credentials, so we have
a GP and a pharmacist,
also people with
experience in the public
sector from places like
the DTI and the National
Audit Office. It allows
us to develop proposals
that are more vigorous
and more challenging,
with better and more
sustainable results.”
Stringer adds:
“Without wanting to
over-egg it in supply
chain in health this is
why we are the market
leader –a lot have tried
before just taking the
sourcing angle and have
not succeeded.”
Related link:
Founders of start-up
consultancies coming
together in London on
14th October
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| | consultancies have left
a void in premium
consultancy services in
the public sector in the
last five years,” says
Garner. “What we have
seen is a fragmentation
of supply at that level.
The void is now being
filled by a range of
organisations in public
sector consulting - the
lid has been lifted and
there’s space to enter
the market. We’re trying
to fulfil what we would
call the very high level
consultancy
requirement.”
Garner sees this as a
return to the values of
“Big Four”-style
consultancy before the
market was distorted by
the massive shift into
IT work.
“We’re a
problem-solving
consultancy business,
not a management
substitute,
body-shopping
consultancy,” he says,
“We overlap and compete
with the likes of
McKinsey and AT
Kearney.”
While Garner sees the
audit firms regrouping
and reentering that
market, in the meantime
Avail has managed | |
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