| | By Mick James
Recent readers of
this column will know
that for predictions and
prognostications for the
coming year they're
probably better off with
the horoscope section of
The Daily Mail. I'm in
a state of perpetual
confusion about the
economy, although I have
to say that the fact
that Gordon Brown is
beginning to sound like
Jim Callaghan in his
"Moses" period has begun
to edge me towards the
camp of the doom
mongers. Could 2008 be
the year of the "perfect
storm" in which we are
treated to a replay of
all the best bits of the
oil crisis of 1971, the
Winter of Discontent of
1978, the 1982 recession
and the 1990s housing
slump?
So I was intrigued to
be invited by the
University of Bristol to
take part in a survey
looking at what the
consulting industry will
be like in 2012.
Speaking as a man who in
the year 2000 wrote a | |
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| | book called Management
Consultancy 2010, which
I'm too embarrassed to
even open these days
(although I might take a
peek in two years’
time), that's a long
time to look into the
future.
But I waded in
anyway, boldly
describing myself as an
"industry commentator"
and proceeding to reveal
how little I really know
about this industry of
ours. Hopefully, my
remarks will be suitably
weighted when the final
research appears this
autumn, which I look
forward to reading
(assuming all economic
activity hasn't ceased
by then).
Afterwards, my
thoughts ran on and I
realised that I'd
approached the survey in
a completely
cart-before-the-horse
way, thinking about
consultancy first and
clients second.
Consultancy is, after
all, a bit like one of
those Rachel Whiteread
sculptures: look at it | |
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| | in isolation and all you
get is the negative
space left behind by
whatever mysterious
activities clients have
been up to. To put it
less flatteringly,
consultancy is a cushion
which bears the imprint
of the last person who
sat on it. If we could
look at the industry in
2012 we'd see traces of
all the traumas and
upheavals that the next
four years will bring.
This brings into
focus one of the great
dilemmas of consultancy,
at least from the point
of view of planning the
future from a skills
point of view. On the
one hand, the
individuals you need
must be operating at the
highest possible levels
of performance and
expertise in their
chosen disciplines. But
at the same time they
need to be sufficiently
flexible that you can
adapt your offering and
business model to the
caprice of client
demand. The closest
analogy I can think of | |
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| | is being a silent film
pianist, trying to
provide a seamless
melodic accompaniment to
a film you've never seen
and which constantly
veers from tragedy to
comedy.
So perhaps the
"challenge for
consultancy" should be
turned on its head. The
real challenge is for
clients, who so far have
largely failed to design
their businesses in a
way that acknowledges
the ongoing, if
intermittent, need for
outside assistance. Just
as you wouldn't design a
building without access
to your utilities, so
any major organisation
should have natural
interfaces for dealing
with consultants. At the
moment consultancy is
still associated with a
certain violence to the
organisation, which is
now being reciprocated
by the increasing
pressure from
procurement
professionals. One would
hope that after a few
more years of this | |
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| | argy-bargy, things might
have settled down a bit
and that clients would
have not just a clearer
view of consultancy, but
would have established a
more explicit
demarcation between the
various levels of
subcontracting and
outside advice and
assistance they employ.
Whether clients will
ever attain this level
of consciousness is
debatable. At the moment
the uncomfortable
situation for
consultants is that they
work in an industry
which is being
constantly reshaped by
people who a) have no
expertise in the matter
and b) don't even know
they are doing it.
Remember that the next
time someone questions
your fee rates!
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