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| | colleagues missed the
Andersen culture when
the practice merged with
Deloitte. “A lot of the
way we’ve grown and
developed as a company
has been influenced by
the things we liked at
Andersen.”
Qedis spends a lot
time working on its
culture, building a
tightly knit community
of consultants, in an
effort to combine all
the attractions of a
career in consultancy
without the downsides
that sometimes come with
large organisations.
“We liked the variety
of work, the challenges,
but not all the career
management that comes
with working for such a
large organisation,”
says Vipul Kapadia.
“That’s such a diversion
from the really
important thing, working
with clients,”
This also means
staying relatively
small, while still
hitting quite ambitious
growth targets in the
early years.
“You don’t need to be
huge any more, says
Kapadia, adding that
these days even FTSE 350
clients are much more
willing to speak to
smaller consultancies.
“They’re not letting | |
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| | the big firms have
control of these big
projects anymore,” he
says. “They look at us
and see that we can come
on board and sit on
their side of the table.
They know we haven’t got
an ulterior motive to
sell in 20, 30 or 40
other people–because we
haven’t got them.”
Qedis' growth plans
were give a major boost
by a big win with the
First transport group,
helping them develop
their internal project
management capability.
Although this was a big
project, First were so
impressed with Qedis
they were prepared to
wait for them to recruit
the necessary
consultants for the
project.
Because Qedis
initially grew through
personal networks, it is
an unusually
tightly-knit
consultancy:
“Most people at are
close outside Qedis,"
says Kapadia. “We make
sure we all get together
at least once a quarter,
it’s very much a
community. Of course
where that bites is in
an economic downturn—if
you have to slim down by
five or ten per cent it
hurts a lot more. | |
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| | Buffering ourselves
against that is very
much a management
priority.”
Qedis has now grown
to 30 people, and is
even hiring graduates at
a time when many larger
consultancies are
restricting themselves
to experienced hires.
“We hired two
graduates in our second
year plus two
experienced people who
wanted to move into
consultancy at the
lowest rung and work
their way up.”
Kapadia says that
company has now made the
decision to deliberately
move outside the ”gene
pool” of personal
networks:
“We were worried that
it might become a bit
sterile, that there
would be too many of us
thinking the same way,
he says. “That’s a much
bigger challenge, as
it’s difficult for new
people to penetrate this
group who all know each
other quite well.”
One interesting
innovation Qedis has
adopted is to give
everyone in the company
an internal role, known
as an “initiative”.
“I look after
talent—scheduling
rewards and | |
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| | remuneration,” says
Vipaul. ”Someone else
looks after
remuneration, we have
someone who manages
recruitment agencies and
the training spend. One
of our MBAs is
developing our year
three business plan.”
Qedis also has an
advisory board—a sort of
quasi-non-exec
arrangement with
“industry heavyweights”
who advise on Qedis’s
progress every quarter.
“They’re helping us
as a young organisation,
with things like the
business plan,” says
Vipaul. “Their insight
into things like the
long-term business cycle
is very useful—we
probably don’t use them
enough.”
Qedis are an example
of a new wave of
consultancies that are
not only doing well for
themselves but
refreshing the whole
industry with new and
creative ways of
working. As innovation
and talent spreads
beyond the "Big Four",
the challenge for
clients will be how to
track these new
consultancies down and
then cope with the
diversity and choice
they offer. | |
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