Public and private sector organisations are spending huge amounts of money buying professional services, and most are doing it badly, without sufficiently rigorous procurement processes or an adequate understanding of the marketplace, resulting in wasted money and disappointing outcomes.
Even among those organisations with formal procurement processes and techniques, many are applying them inappropriately and therefore achieve similarly poor results. On the other side of the fence, many professional services firms don’t understand how the increasing application of procurement processes could affect the way they get business and work with clients, the way they charge and, ultimately, their profitability. Furthermore, while they are working together, both professional services providers and their clients too often behave in ways that reduce the potential benefits to both parties.
Using real examples from a range of private sector firms, government departments and the professional services firms themselves, this book explores what users and providers of professional services need to do to ensure that the users’ money is well spent and the providers earnings are well earned.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Fiona Czerniawska
Fiona Czerniawska is the founder and managing director of Arkimeda, a firm that specialises in researching and consulting on strategic issues in the consulting industry. Previously, she spent more than 15 years as a management consultant, working primarily in marketing and strategy for Pricewaterhouse Coopers. After Oxford University, she obtained a PhD from teh University of London and an MBA from Kingston Business School. she is the director of the UK Management Consultancies Association's Think Tank and the author of a number of books and publications on consulting, including Management Consultancy: What Next?, Value-Based Consulting, The Intelligent Client and Management Conclulting in Practice.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Peter Smith
Peter Smith is an expert on purchasing and supply chain issues, and Managing Director of Procurement Excellence, a specialist consulting firm. He has advised UK public sector organisations such as the Treasury and the Ministry of Defence, and international businesses such as Barclays and Reuters. Before moving into consultancy, he was Procurement Director for the UK’s Department of Social Security and the NatWest Group, as well as holding senior purchasing positions at Dun & Bradstreet and Mars. He studied Maths at Cambridge University, and is a Fellow and past President of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply.
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