Transforming the client base

A leading consulting partnership was performing well and growing in line with the market. The problem, however, was that the client base included a long list of small clients for whom the cost of sales was unsupportable. As a result, the organisation was less profitable than its competitors. 

The partners recognised the issue but they were not relinquishing the minor clients. The business was operating on a functional basis with clients ‘held’ by key partners based on who did most work with an organisation. Large-scale work was being lost to competitors who could afford to put staff onto major accounts on a full-time basis.

Bath Consultancy Group worked with the executive team to develop a programme that would shift the culture. The main targets of the programme were the partners and directors; the objective being to shift them to a position where they could maximise the firm’s rate of contact across all services. This meant that the perceived role of partner had to shift from technical expert to being that of client ‘mentor or coach’.

Reward mechanisms and targets were restructured to allow for the creation of account teams on the top 50 accounts. There were also rewards for closing minor accounts.
The programme became extremely popular and ran for more than three years; all partners in consulting adopted the new ways of working and were also clear it had increased profitability. In addition, the top 10 accounts had significant increases in revenue.