Federica Codignola

English

Research Papers in Economics

© SYMPHONYA Emerging Issues in Management, n. 1, 2007 
www.unimib.it/symphonya 
 
 
 
 
Edited by: ISTEI - University of Milan-Bicocca  ISSN: 1593-0319 
Czerniawska Fiona, Ensuring Sustainable Value from Consultants, Symphonya. Emerging Issues in 
Management (www.unimib.it/symphonya), n. 1, 2007, pp. 40-46 
http://dx.doi.org/10.4468/2007.1.05czerniawska 
     40 
Ensuring Sustainable Value  
from Consultants
* 
 
 
Fiona Czerniawska
** 
 
 
 
Abstract 
Decision-makers tend to view consulting projects in a positive light because that 
validates their decision to use consultants. 
That  consultants  know  what  they  are  doing  is  an  undoubted  prerequisite  for 
success  across  all  types  of  projects,  not  just  people-related  ones.  The  more 
knowledgeable a consultant has proved to be, the more satisfied the client is. 
Communication is another area where the gap between satisfied and unsatisfied 
clients is greatest.  
Among consulting projects that have gone well, it is hard to find a single one that 
has not involved a joint client-consultant team. Moreover, integration is not just a 
question of people working together or being based in the same physical location. 
 
Keywords: Management Consulting; Consulting; Consulting Satisfaction Levels; 
Value of Consultants; Client-Consultant Relationship 
 
 
 
1. Consulting Satisfaction Levels and Project Hierarchy 
 
The  Management  Consultancies  Association,  in  collaboration  with  Management 
Today, carried out a survey of around 180 managers from a wide range of sectors who 
had dealt with a broad range of different consulting projects, from small-scale strategic 
advice to large-scale IT and outsourcing implementations. Of these 86 percent said they 
were completely or partly satisfied; 14 percent claimed to be not at all satisfied. 
However, unusually among surveys on consultants, our survey also asked people 
to say what role they had played in the consulting project. Were they the person 
who  took  the  decision  to  bring  consultants  in,  or  were  they  someone  who 
influenced that decision? Were they the project manager in charge of the project, or 
someone seconded in from elsewhere in the client organisation to work with the 
consultants? Perhaps they were not directly involved in the project, but an end-user, 
                                                 
*  This  article  is  an  edited  version  of  a  longer  report  of  a  report  of  the  same  name  available  at 
www.mca.org.uk 
** Management Consultancies Association UK, Think-Tank Director (Fiona.Cz@arkimeda.com) © SYMPHONYA Emerging Issues in Management, n. 1, 2007 
www.unimib.it/symphonya 
 
 
 
 
Edited by: ISTEI - University of Milan-Bicocca  ISSN: 1593-0319 
       
     41 
someone  whose  work  might  have  been  affected  by  the  consultants’  actions  or 
recommendations. 
Looking at satisfaction levels from this point of view suggests that those who 
decide to use consultants are much more likely – in fact, four times as likely – to be 
satisfied as people who were seconded from elsewhere in the client organisation to 
work on a project (Figure 1).  
Not surprisingly, perhaps, decision-makers tend to view consulting projects in a 
positive light because that validates their decision to use consultants; it may also be 
that  they  are  in  a  better  position  to  see  the  overall  benefits.  Perhaps  people 
seconded into projects from elsewhere in a client organisation and end-users feel 
put-upon; maybe they resent the consultants’ presence. Perhaps this dichotomy is 
inevitable. 
So should we be worried about it? Yes, because it is the level of engagement 
among people who work with the consultants which determines success.  
 
Figure 1: Satisfaction Levels Fall as You Go Down the Project Hierarchy 
 
To what extent were you satisfied by the results of the consulting project? 
Percentage of respondents saying they were completely satisfied
48% 45%
28%
11%
17%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Decision-makers Influencers Project
managers
People
seconded to the
project
End-users
 
 
 
2. Maximising the Value of Consultants from the Top Down 
 
Every manager has their own view on how you best manage consultants. Most 
will tell you it is a combination of credibility on the part of the consultants, clarity 
of objectives, and good communication. 
That  consultants  know  what  they  are  doing  is  an  undoubted  prerequisite  for 
success  across  all  types  of  projects,  not  just  people-related  ones.  The  more 
knowledgeable a consultant has proved to be, the more satisfied the client is. On 
average, 74 percent of people who were satisfied with the work done by consultants 
in  our  survey  thought  their  consultants  knew  what  they  were  talking  about, 
compared  to  just  17  percent  of  dissatisfied  respondents  (Figure  2).  Dissatisfied 
clients believe they do their consultants’ work for them (Figure 3). 
Expert consultants are not arrogant ones, but are prepared to listen to what the 
client  has  to  say:  nine  out  of  ten  respondents  to  our  questionnaire  who  were 
satisfied  with  the  consultants  they  had  used  said  they  had  been  listened  to;  no 
dissatisfied  client  did.  Perhaps  not  surprisingly,  respondents  involved  in  small 
projects were far more likely to positive about this than those involved in large-
scale ones; people were also more likely to be negative if the consultants had been 
brought in for political reasons. Completely satisfied clients were also twice as 
likely to invest in ensuring the consultants were able to hit the ground running. © SYMPHONYA Emerging Issues in Management, n. 1, 2007 
www.unimib.it/symphonya 
 
 
 
 
Edited by: ISTEI - University of Milan-Bicocca  ISSN: 1593-0319 
       
     42 
We had to do the consultants' work for 
them 
0%
85%
50%
17%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
Agree Disagree
Satisfied respondents
Not at all satisfied respondents
The consultants knew what they were 
doing from the outset; they hit the ground 
running
74%
40%
17%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Satisfied
respondents
Partially
satisfied
respondents
Not at all
satisfied
respondents
 
Figure 2: Consultants have to be Experts… 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Figure 3: … And not Free-Loaders 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Our survey also indicates that clarity is something the people who commission 
consulting projects preach, but do not always practice. Decision-makers were twice 
as  likely  to  be  clear  about  why  the  consultants  had  been  hired  and  who  was 
responsible for what. Going back over the proposal a consulting firm had written at 
the start of a project was ten times more common among unhappy clients than 
happy ones. Unhappy clients were also half as likely to have developed a business 
case for the project quantifying the expected benefits.  
Levels of frustration about the role of consultants were markedly higher among 
people seconded into a consulting project than among project managers (Figure 4).  
Communication was another area where the gap between satisfied and unsatisfied 
clients was greatest. Our survey once more reveals the disparity between the views 
of  those  responsible  for  running  consulting  projects  and  those  at  the  coal-face. 
Client staff seconded into a project to work with the consultants were half as likely 
as  decision-makers  to  believe  that  communication  between  themselves  and  the 
consultants was open and honest. 
 
 © SYMPHONYA Emerging Issues in Management, n. 1, 2007 
www.unimib.it/symphonya 
 
 
 
 
Edited by: ISTEI - University of Milan-Bicocca  ISSN: 1593-0319 
       
     43 
Figure 4: But Frustration does Cascade Down the Organisational Hierarchy 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
3. Maximising the Value of Consultants from the Bottom Up 
 
But credibility, a clear sense of purpose, communication, and commitment are all 
top-down  approaches  to  ensuring  consultants  add  value.  Yet  it  is  the  lateral 
relationships between the consultants and members of a client’s staff involved in 
the project which are vital in determining success. This is a factor people loosely 
term ‘collaboration’ or ‘working in partnership.’ 81 percent of people we surveyed 
believed  their  work  with  consultants  represented  genuine  partnership  working, 
compared to just 2 percent of dissatisfied ones. 
But what do people mean by collaboration or partnership working in practice?  
 
□ Eilish Henry is responsible for a project at HM Revenue and Customs 
which  aims  to  use  lean  manufacturing  techniques  to  improve  the 
efficiency with which returns are processed. A third of HMRC’s 100,000 
employees are involved in processing returns of one sort or another: the 
need  to  improve  customer  service  and  government  efficiency  targets 
(equivalent to a 30 percent saving in processing costs by March 2008) 
has meant the stakes are particularly high. To complicate matters, the 
department also had a backlog of work from its Inland Revenue days and 
a  culture  which  had  tended  to  put  achieving  numerical  performance 
targets above quality and customer service. ‘That was a real quandary 
for us,’ says Henry. ‘We didn’t really think you could do both.’ Lean 
manufacturing techniques appeared to offer a solution, but Henry and 
her  team  needed  to  pilot  them,  first  on  self-assessment  returns  in  a 
comparatively  small  office  in  Scotland,  and  then  in  larger  centres  in 
Cardiff and Portsmouth. The department used McKinsey to help with the 
initial Scottish pilot and PA Consulting Group to help with the two larger 
ones. ‘We started with a clear view of what we wanted to achieve,’ says 
Henry, ‘and, if we’d have the skills internally we’d have used our own 
people to evaluate it, but we just didn’t have any experience in this field.’ 
Within  weeks  of  starting  the  pilots  it  became  clear  that  a  significant 
reduction in turnaround times and improvement in quality were possible. 
In 2006, as the process is rolled out to over 7,000 staff it is expected to 
deliver between £59 million and £99 million in annual savings.  
It was very frustrating: we didn't know what the consultants were doing
9% 10%
13%
33%
13%
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
Decision-makers Influencers Project
managers
People
seconded to the
project
End-users© SYMPHONYA Emerging Issues in Management, n. 1, 2007 
www.unimib.it/symphonya 
 
 
 
 
Edited by: ISTEI - University of Milan-Bicocca  ISSN: 1593-0319 
       
     44 
 
□  Henry  attributes  the  success  to  two  main  factors:  a  clear  set  of 
objectives and effective communication. But the one aspect of this project 
that stood out was the extent to which HMRC’s people became engaged 
in the process. ‘Don’t underestimate the challenge to our front-line staff,’ 
she  says.  ‘They’ve  had  to  instil  a  very  high  level  of  personal 
accountability and engagement; managers have had to broach difficult 
issues with their staff – the quality of their work, their attendance record, 
and some people remain very unhappy about the changes. That’s why the 
tremendous  commitment  of  the  consultants  to  make  this  a  collective 
endeavour, not something done by them to us, has been so important. 
They  went  to  enormous  lengths  to  understand  our  business  and  their 
willingness  to  do  so  genuinely  impressed  our  otherwise  cynical  line 
manager. They didn’t try and bamboozle the people they worked with, 
with the latest methodology or fad. But, above all else, they helped coach 
our people so that they got something out of the project at a personal 
level. We invested a lot of time and effort developing their management 
skills, and there’s been a huge payoff to this.’ 
 
HMRC’s experience highlights three factors which have an impact on the bottom-
up success of a consulting project, all of which are reinforced by our survey:  
-  having an integrated team of consultants and clients working side by side 
-  ensuring that the consultants take a flexible approach and remain responsive 
to the inevitably changing demands of their clients 
-  ensuring that people involved from the client staff gain at a personal level. 
 
Among consulting projects that have gone well, it is hard to find a single one that 
has not involved a joint client-consultant team. Moreover, integration is not just a 
question of people working together or being based in the same physical location. It 
is a point, too, that comes out of our survey: 66 percent of satisfied clients thought 
team work had been so effective that it was hard to tell whether someone was an 
employee or a consultant; 72 percent of dissatisfied clients disagreed (Figure 5). 
 
Figure 5: The Importance of Team Work 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
We worked well together; it was hard 
to tell whether someone was an 
employee or a consultant
66%
6% 0%
72%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Agree Disagree
Satisified respondents
Not at all satisfied respondents© SYMPHONYA Emerging Issues in Management, n. 1, 2007 
www.unimib.it/symphonya 
 
 
 
 
Edited by: ISTEI - University of Milan-Bicocca  ISSN: 1593-0319 
       
     45 
 
□ ‘We assigned the team from Trinity Horne [a specialist consulting 
firm] to offices in our building, treating them as an extension of our 
management team,’ says Garry Johnstone at BT. ‘They critiqued our 
people, and vice versa: rather than complaining about people behind 
their back, we talk about issues openly. But, equally, we’d accord the 
same respect to the people from Trinity Horne as to our colleagues. And 
they  deserved  it:  they  worked  in  what  is  the  engine  room  of  our 
operation.’ ‘What made a difference here was the process we had for 
working together,’ says Martin Haynes at Trinity Horne. ‘The key thing 
was  not  paring  things  back  to  basics  and,  because  most  of  us  have 
earned our stripes outside the consulting industry, we had a degree of 
credibility with the people on the ground.’  
 
□ But it was not just the experience of Trinity Horne’s people that 
mattered, but the fact they were willing to think on their feet. ‘One of 
the things that matters in situations like these is having practical ideas, 
not coming in with a set of pre-defined solution,’ says David Turner at 
Trinity Horne. 
 
That point is reiterated by almost every client you speak to. Similarly, a massive 
85 percent of satisfied clients thought their consultants had been pragmatic and 
responsive to change, although once again the proportion of people who thought 
this  went  down,  the  further  down  the  project  hierarchy  you  go.  61  percent  of 
decision-makers believed the consultants had been flexible, but only half as many 
end-users did. 
Indeed, it is quite clear that, when clients talk about wanting consultants to be 
innovative, it is this ability to come up with a solution which precisely fits a unique 
set of circumstances which counts most, not wheeling in the next big idea.  
 
□ Bob Dench has often used consultants from Troika, a consulting 
firms  specialising  in  the  financial  services  sector,  in  his  career  in 
investment banking: ‘One of the reasons I keep going back to them is 
they know a huge amount about financial services and are willing to 
challenge  their  own  –  and  our  –  assumptions.  In  the  conventional 
consulting  model,  a  partner  sells  the  work  but  only  turns  up  for 
occasional meetings, leaving the more junior consultants to do most of 
the work. However hard they work, they’re working to a pattern, so you 
don’t  get  any  deep  moments.  When  we  work  with  Troika,  we  get 
surprises  in  the  best  sense:  they  tell  us  things  we  genuinely  hadn’t 
thought of: that’s stardust’. 
 
Joint working and not imposing a rigid methodology are both important to people 
who work side by side with consultants, but the single most important factor in 
making the relationship work at this very personal level is the extent to which the 
people involved from the client side gain something from the experience. After all, © SYMPHONYA Emerging Issues in Management, n. 1, 2007 
www.unimib.it/symphonya 
 
 
 
 
Edited by: ISTEI - University of Milan-Bicocca  ISSN: 1593-0319 
       
     46 
why should they put up with the disruption of having consultants in if they don’t 
benefit?  
70 percent of respondents to our survey who were satisfied with the work the 
consultants had done had also gained personally from the experience, compared 
with just 6 percent of those who were dissatisfied (Figure 6). This remains true, 
irrespective of the size of the project, the role of the person responding and the 
length of time the consultants were around. 
That no one gets out of bed on a Monday morning to improve their employer’s 
share-price is a truism of modern management, so why should we expect the people 
involved in consulting projects to think any differently? What is in it for them? 
In the first place, they should be acquiring new skills. Learning from consultants 
takes willingness on both sides.  
Consulting projects can – and should – also open up new career opportunities for 
those involved.  
 
□ ‘The work we did energised our business at all levels,’ says Colin 
Brown at Westinghouse Rail Systems who hired PA Consulting Group 
to  help  reduce  its  contract  costs  without  compromising  quality.  ‘We 
found people, some of whom had downshifted, others had got stuck in 
dusty corners of our business, but all of them were bright enough to see 
the  potential  for  doing  interesting  work  –  and  involved  them  in  the 
programme. For these people, the project has been a springboard to 
new, better careers’. 
 
Consulting projects that go wrong tend to focus on the top-down factors at the 
expense of these bottom-up ones. Yet it is the bottom-up factors which are likely to 
be the true determinants of success – and it is to these that consulting firms need to 
pay attention in the future. 
 
Figure 6: The Importance of Being Selfish 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I personally gained a lot from working 
with the consultants 
70%
4% 6%
61%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Agree Disagree
Satisfied respondents
Not at all satisfied respondents

The Art Market, Global Economy and Information Transparency

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The Art Market, Global Economy and Information Transparency

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