Episode show notes
“It isn’t about the price of the consultancy, it’s the impact of the outcome they’re delivering, so cheap can become very expensive.”
The difference in spend between contingent labour and consultancies globally is incredibly small, yet the technology and systems to work with them lags far behind.In this jam-packed episode of Talent Talks we look at the 6 biggest concerns with consultancy services, which tools are needed to alleviate those pain points, and how to reassess the value that firms place on consultancy services..
This episode of Talent Talks covers:
- The combined public and private sector experiences that led to Constellia’s inception
- Transitioning the MSP model across sectors
- A lack of established technology solutions for consultancy, despite a similar level of spend to contingent labour
- The 6 top risks that category managers are facing right now
- Reframing the financial impact of consultancy to consider value over cost
The Talent Talks Podcast is proudly sponsored by Barkers Commercial Consultancy. Barkers are a multi-award-winning ethical, procurement consultancy offering specialist services including cost and procurement transformation, contract lifecycle management, procurement managed services, bid writing services and digital procurement https://barkersprocurement.com/
Episode highlights
“The question is: why did the public sector take up our solution when we offered it, and why is the private sector only taking it up now? I can’t say with my hand on my heart that it’s got anything to do with me, by the way. I’m not that powerful, but it’s just about time.” – 9:10 – Rob Levene
“There were two things happening. The first was austerity, so there was less money coming to the public sector and they had to make savings, there was no choice. So they had to look at every category of spend, including this category; a focus on savings. The second thing was their freedom of information. So suddenly, all organisations had to publish their spend about £500 as well, as suddenly the public could see their spend as well. The category had to be addressed.” – 10:10 – Rob Levene
“The global spend on contingent labour is estimated by an ex-spend matters analyst, is estimated to be about £500 billion. On contingent labour, there are established solutions, VMS’s, and established MSP providers. The global spend on consultancy is about the same figure, yet there is no established technology and there is no established solution for it yet.” – 13:40 – Rob Levene
“The first thing we’re trying to get at is, and it’s one of the biggest frustrations that procurement have in this category, is their ability to influence spend early on enough in the cycle that procurement isn’t then just the transactional engine at the back.” – 21:55 – Rob Levene
“The biggest issues we’re seeing are consultants failing to deliver, and more importantly therefore, contract sets up that don’t punish that. IR35 liability, lack of proper background checks on consultancy staff, supplier business failure (especially with SMEs), and COVID-19. But the biggest one is data security, especially at this time when we’re working remotely, so data security is a massive issue and concern when using consultants.” – 27:30 – Rob Levene
“Alan, my business partner, always says the rule of thumb should be that you work on the cheapest common denominator. So as long as you can get the right outcome, then find the best value way to do it. Ultimately, it isn’t about the price of the consultancy, it’s about the outcome that they’re delivering and the impact of the outcome as well. So cheap can become very expensive, and know-how is very important as well.” – 36:15 – Rob Levene
“What they and we are realising is that the public and private sectors aren’t that different. There’s different terminologies, different cultures perhaps, we haven’t got politics in the private sector but we’ve got different types of politics and different initiatives, it’s an ITT in the public sector and RFP in the private sector. Ultimately, they’re similar and a lot of suppliers are the same. The types of supply clearly are often different, but there’s lots of common buyers too.” – 44:00 – Rob Levene
Links & References
- Rob Levene, CEO of Constellia
https://www.linkedin.com/in/consultancyspend/
- Constellia
https://www.linkedin.com/company/constellia-limited/https://www.constellia.com/
- Martin Smith, Founder & Director of Talent Drive
https://www.linkedin.com/in/martinsmith2009/
