The global consultancies share some characteristics of the largest branches of Tesco. Vast out-of-town supermarkets may offer everything you need to keep the home well stocked, but do they really give you the quality that could be yours by spending a couple of hours in boutiques, delicatessens and food halls?
Perhaps the one-stop shop can meet all your basic and immediate needs. But some management challenges require a pooling of expertise and talent from a team of consultancies working together.
"On paper the biggest firms have all the capabilities you might want," says Andrew Crowley, vice-president of consulting and systems integration for CSC, the international information technology consultancy. "But there is a risk element to that. A consortium gives you a slightly different view on life, and probably better value as well. There is certainly a desire from government [as a client] to see larger consortia at the moment," he adds.
That view is echoed by Bernard Brown, senior vice-president for consulting in the UK, Americas and Asia-Pacific for Atos Origin, the IT consultancy. "You won't necessarily have all the skills to meet the 'end-to-end' requirements of a large client," he says. "We are not a small firm by any means - in fact, we are the largest European player - but we have to partner. It is an essential part of our work."
What kind of approach is required to make these consortia work? "You can't treat a partner as a sub-contractor or supplier," says Fiona Driscoll, strategy director at Hedra, a specialist public sector consultancy. "That is no way to get people to give of their best. In a strategic partnership there is clarity about what each firm is delivering. There is no competing going on."
Claire Ruskin, a member of PA Consulting's management group, agrees. "We are increasingly working in alliances with different people," she says. "You need to have a clear definition of what each party will do, but with the additional flexibility to cover other areas if that is required once the project is under way. You also need to pick the right individuals who will be able to work in a partnership, so you need to choose consultants with the mindset to do this - people who are collaborative and collegiate."
For Mr Brown, there are several core elements to a successful collaboration. "First, what are the rules of engagement?" he asks. "How will we work together, how will we measure progress? Then we look for seamless teamwork - can we keep the same team throughout a project lasting between six and 18 months? In our part nership with TNT on NHS logistics, for example, we have co-located the team, so they should feel part of the same group.
"Then there is personal integrity: do our strategies and approaches fit? Personal relationships matter enormously too. Business hasn't changed that much, in spite of all the new ways of communicating. Then there is the commitment of all involved, and the question of cultural fit and values: if your values are not shared at the outset you will find out later to your cost. Finally, there is the question of joint marketing: how do we protect each other's brand?"
Mr Crowley agrees that "credibility by association" is an added attraction of consortia. CSC's involvement with Hedra on the NHS IT reforms has raised the firm's profile and helped reinforce its identity as a more broadly based consultancy in the UK market. "You can use deals like these to build the brand," he says.
Mr Crowley does not underestimate the difficulty of making consortia work for both client and consultant. "You need explicit work-share agreements up front," he says. "Otherwise you will find yourself arguing over what percentage of the work goes to one partner or another. You need that commercial relationship in place, with agreed milestones for the project.
"Partnerships are dynamic. They evolve, and like a marriage there will be ups and downs. The interpersonal relationships are vital, and greed will destroy it. You need the same ethics, the same values, so you can combine your skills and not fight over revenues."
Ms Ruskin agrees: "We have found that this is really down to the individual behaviour of the consultants working in the partnership. So we try to choose consultants who have the right approach."
Last year Atos Origin replaced IBM as the International Olympic Committee's IT partner for the next three Olympic games. In Athens last summer Atos was managing more than 2,300 different suppliers, often without written contracts in place. "Without our experience of partnering we would never have been able to pull that off," Mr Brown says.
