Business model

What do a pen and a children’s playground have in common?

One of the revolutions in financial services over the last ten years has been the increasing complexity of its supply chain. Banks sell products which other organisations develop and administer. Buy your insurance from one company and you’ll find another providing the service behind the scenes. The result is an industry increasingly polarised between front-office organisations, whose brands are household names, and back-office ones we’ve often never heard of.

The fall in public sector expenditure on consultants in the UK since June’s election has been steeper and sharper than anyone expected. And it’s not stopping there: two thirds of senior public sector managers expect it to continue falling over the next year, our research has found.