Supporting Our Clients

The Client Consultant Relationship

It is vitally important that we form a strong, supporting relationship with our clients, while maintaining the ability and willingness to challenge the status quo. Our assignments tend to be long, lasting several months, so we can develop a good relationship at all levels not only with the client and their staff but also with their suppliers, customers and other stakeholders. This level of engagement is often necessary if strategic objectives are to be properly understood and implementation is to be successful.

We work on what we call business projects, believing that there is no such thing as, for example, an IT project, a moniker that seems to us to be at risk of missing the point. If people see it as only an IT project, many of the users and other stakeholders may be discouraged from engaging, and their vital involvement from initial definition to eventual training and use will be lost. Inevitably, the project will then be weakened and may fail.

Accordingly, all projects are business projects. They exist to improve the organisation in some way, to provide benefits to the organisation, its stakeholders and its customers. Success will invariably be drawn from the engagement of all of the stakeholders in their drive to achieve a common goal, a goal that should be in accordance with the organisation’s overall objectives. We can help our clients to establish and agree this goal.

It is in developing the strategy and agreeing the projects that are required to achieve the goal that we find we add the greatest value. We can then assist in forming the team, the plan, and in delivering the result. But at its heart there will be the need for a complete view of the business, its stakeholders’ and the users’ needs so that whatever the project delivers is fit for purpose.

Why are we engaged?

You are interested in help with your business
You have seen a problem
You might know what the problem is, and might have ideas about how to resolve it
You are looking for help to take the idea from concept to completion.
You want to discuss it with someone
You need an independent view

What Makes a Great Assignment – or What Makes an Assignment Great

Exploring this with other consultants, there was broad consensus on the need to fulfil all of the following.

There has to be a strong relationship between the client team and the consultants. This means that communications and dialogue have to be maintained at all appropriate levels.
There has to be a problem to solve, and the more complex it is, the stronger the relationship can be in determining an optimum solution.
There is an expectation of a need to help agree what the problem actually is, for which a series of exploratory discussions is necessary.
This is followed by the actual development and trial of solutions.
Then there can be direct assistance with implementation to ensure that the solution can and will work.
This should finish with the client team and the consultants feeling that there has been a job well done.

Our range of services

We have either delivered or assisted directly with all of the following:

Strategy Development
Strategy Implementation
Project Management and Programme Management
Change Management
Identifying and maintaining business benefits
Business analysis and process improvement
Process Mapping
Business Modelling
Planning
Procurement
Marketing
PR

Sectors

We have worked in sectors including:

Central Government
Local Authorities
Commercial Public Organisations
Utilities
Pharmaceutical
Management Training and Business Education