Buyers of management consultancy believe that their performance could improve by as much as 50 per cent through the application of good practice materials and approaches, according to a new survey of procurement professionals carried by the Management Consultancies Association’s (MCA) Consultancy Buyers Forum.
The Forum has recently launched its ‘Blueprint’ website which sets out good practice guidance drawn up by working groups of clients and consultancies for each stage of the buying and consulting cycle.
Buyers say that performance would particularly benefit during the supplier selection phase and when they are evaluating the overall value that is delivered by each consulting project.
Procurement professionals who participated in the survey were critical of their own organisation’s current performance, giving themselves an average score of just 5.6 out of 10. Scores were particularly low when questioned about how well their organisation evaluated the value of a project and the supplier’s performance.
This compares with an average score of 8.62 out of 10 when respondents were asked to rate the importance of different stages of a consulting project, from defining the initial business need to evaluating the supplier’s performance. Accurately defining the business need and specifying the deliverable outcomes were felt to be the most important and influential stages of a consulting project.
Alan Leaman, Chief Executive of the MCA, said: “Our aim is to provide another boost to the value that clients gain from using the best consultancies, already found to be worth around £6 for every £1 spent in fees. The Forum brings the top buyers of consulting and our member firms together and the Blueprint will help deliver these outstanding benefits much more widely.”
Paul Vincent, Chair of the Consultancy Buyers Forum said: “The research confirms that buyers of consulting services are hungry for good advice and guidance. The Forum’s blueprint provides the recommended model and it is already having an impact on the approaches of clients, procurement departments and the consulting firms that they use.”
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The Management Consultancies Association (MCA)
The MCA is the representative body for management consultancy firms in the UK. Its mission is to promote the value of management consultancy for the economy and society as a whole. The MCA's member companies comprise around 60 per cent of the UK consulting industry, employ around 30,000 consultants and work with over 90 of the top FTSE 100 companies and almost all parts of the public sector. The UK consulting industry is amongst the best in the world and a vital part of the business landscape.
Compliance with the MCA's tough entry criteria and rigorous Code of Practice means that MCA member companies are widely acknowledged to provide high quality services to their clients.