Client-consultant relationship

By Alison Huntington.

I recently interviewed a consultant who was telling me about a digital transformation programme he’d worked on with one of Britain’s police forces. As part of the programme, each front-line officer was given a tablet to replace the traditional policeman’s notebook. The technology would mean accurate digital records, fewer hours lost to paperwork, the ability to update cases on the go, and myriad other benefits. Except that it didn’t. The consultant went out on the beat one day and watched as an officer took out his tablet … and proceeded to use it as a clipboard to lean his paper notebook against while he jotted down his notes with an old-fashioned biro.

It’s just one of many examples that illustrate how the success of transformation depends on people, not just new technology. So what do HR clients—the people in charge of the people—make of the consultants trying to help them?

By Fiona Czerniawska.

Another day, another announcement. In this case it’s that law firm Allen & Overy plans to start offering regulatory consulting later this year in addition to the legal advice it already offers in this area.

Four factors have upped the ante where diversification is concerned. Buyers have changed: To use the Allen & Overy example, regulatory work isn’t just being bought by the CFO but has become an area over which every functional head has some responsibility. Services have changed: Most of the high-growth markets right across professional services are those that combine traditional capabilities in new ways—look at the way cybersecurity work now involves behavioural change, strategy and—no doubt—legal advice, to name a few.

By Fiona Czerniawska.

“The consulting firm,” said a senior executive we were chatting to, “is like a public library, packed to the rafters with the best books on the planet, but it’s often hard to find exactly what you’re looking for.” 

A library’s business model is founded on access. Catalogues allow readers to see if a specific book is held; classification and coding systems allow them to browse shelves of similar books. But all of that infrastructure still depends on something else, knowledgeable people on the front desk. The internet gives us unprecedented search range, and the algorithms that govern search results allow us to browse, but much of the internet’s technological and commercial development has been focused on finding ways to replace the librarian...