Monday 22nd Jul, 2013
What do the new book by economist Paul Ormerod and our latest report have in common? They’re both (in part) about choice and how too much choice drives irrational behaviour.
Monday 15th Jul, 2013
The idea that what a consulting firm thinks might be a greater influence on clients than what is has actually done might seem like a preposterous one, but that's one of the more striking findings of our research over the last few months.
Tuesday 29th Jan, 2013
By Edward Haigh In November of last year I chaired a round-table discussion about the state of consulting procurement. Around the table (which, for pedants, was actually an elongated oval) were about 12 procurement managers with responsibility for buying consulting in some of the largest private sector organisations in Europe.
Wednesday 21st Mar, 2012
Not much. As I mentioned earlier in the week, we’ve spent the last few months talking to more than 400 senior executives who use consulting services on a regular basis. Almost all work in big organisations most of which have preferred supplier lists which should – in theory – govern their choice of consultants. In practice we found that preferred supplier lists matter when one or more of the following conditions apply: - The project involves either a huge amount of work across multiple countries or using consultants to substitute for full-time employees.
Monday 9th Jan, 2012
Let’s start with what has been achieved. Buying and selling consulting services is a vastly different process now to what it was ten years ago. More rigorous, disciplined and transparent, this new approach has encouraged (or forced, depending on your perspective) consulting firms to put more effort into articulating their expertise and demonstrating their track record and to have a more joined-up attitude when dealing with the biggest organisations. For some areas of consulting, the role of procurement is now widely accepted, if not always welcomed. Large-scale, often cross-border technolo
Wednesday 10th Nov, 2010
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.
Thursday 12th Aug, 2010
Speaking to a senior executive within the pharmaceutical industry about the value consultants deliver recently, I was struck by one particular comment: ‘Everyone knows that half of consulting works and that the other half doesn’t’, he said. ‘The trouble is, you never know which half you’re going to get.’
Monday 9th Aug, 2010
A very good friend of mine recently admitted to a rather strange affliction. She calls it shopping bulimia, and it manifests itself as a desire to buy items (particularly shoes) and then return them. The idea is that she gets to enjoy all the pleasures of retail therapy without the lasting guilt of having spent her money. For those of us of a saner disposition – or, dare I say it, for those of us who are men – this seems singularly ridiculous.
Saturday 10th Jul, 2010
One of my favourite quotes is Machiavelli: “A prince who is not himself wise cannot be wisely advised… Good advice depends on the shrewdness of the prince who seeks it, and not the shrewdness of the prince on the good advice.” I’ve used it often when lecturing about consultants to explain to the students (and consultants) in the audience that they can’t deliver good consulting unless they have a shrewd client who knows how to use consultants appropriately.
Sunday 27th Jun, 2010
Well, they can certainly breed. If my experience in college, where my second year room backed onto a rambling garden, is anything to go by, mating hedgehogs make quite a racket – a point I vividly recalled when talking to a client about his organisation’s use of operational improvement consultants for our forthcoming report on this topic.
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