The extent of engagement among the managers from client organisations, who work side-by-side with consultants, determines the success of consulting projects, states a new report by Management Consultancies Association / Management Today.

The report, Ensuring Sustainable Value from Consultants, sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, finds that 86 per cent of clients are wholly or partially satisfied with the value provided by management consultants. The findings reveal that typically, a person who takes the decision to use consultants is about four times as likely to be positive as someone seconded in from other areas of the business to work on the consulting project.

The report, based on a survey of more than 180 managers in the UK, reveals that organisations use consultants for four reasons:

• Access to people with specialist skills accounts for almost half of all consulting projects
  
• Gaining an outside perspective accounts for a further third.
  
• To push through or provide a plan for managing change and
  
• To help take difficult decisions

"Decision makers tend to view consulting projects in a positive light because that validates their decision to use consultants; it may also be that they are in a better position to see the overall benefits," says Fiona Czerniawska, author of the report.

"Perhaps end-users and people seconded into projects from elsewhere in a client organisation feel put-upon; maybe they resent the consultants' presence. These may be the people who can sign the cheques, but it is the people that the consultants work with day-to-day, who have to be engaged, not pushed aside, if a project is to be a long-term success,"

The report identified six key requirements for a successful consulting project:

• Clear Sense of purpose: It is essential that a clear business case is developed before calling in a consultant as the report found that 72 per cent of satisfied respondents to the survey had developed a clear business case for the project in advance.
• Communication: This is where the report found the largest gap between satisfied and unsatisfied clients. Whilst the more consultants listened, the more satisfied the client was likely to be, listening is a two-way process and clients must be willing to listen to consultants too.
• Stakeholder buy-in: This needs to be achieved at many levels and an ability to engage with junior and middle-ranking staff in the client organisation is vital. This is the responsibility of both parties, but consultants need to ensure that they communicate on a day-to-day basis with end users and those seconded on to the project.
• Working in Partnership: Greater value is derived when consultant and client work in partnership. More than three quarters (81 per cent) of satisfied clients believed their work with consultants represented genuine partnership working, compared to just 2 per cent of dissatisfied ones.
• Expect Flexibility: Clients that worked with consultants that rolled up their sleeves and worked flexibly were more satisfied (85 per cent) than those that received a prescribed programme from consultants.
• Inspire Individuals: The greater the involvement of an individual, the more they directly benefited. The survey found that 70 per cent of those individuals who were satisfied with the work of their consultants also gained personally from the experience, compared with just 6 per cent of those who were dissatisfied.

Jeff Thompson, partner and head of performance improvement consulting, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, concluded: "Consultants must focus on the benefits to individuals and not just to the organisation as a whole. And the individuals who derive benefit must not only be the top-level management who buy the consultancy but also the end users of the project. If users can see personal benefits, they are much more likely to be willing to take on the challenges any implementation presents."