Accenture's NHS woes

Richard Granger has been taking a tough stance with Accenture over delays on its multi-billion NHS "Connecting for Health" contracts, forcing the global consultancy to take a $450m pre-tax profit hit in anticipation of future losses on the contract.

Accenture is facing calls to change personnel on the project and there seems to be a determination that public sector coffers will not bear the brunt of setbacks on the contracts. Accenture, meanwhile, is thought to be looking for a renegotiation of the contracts. Expect a turbulent few months of press coverage on this one...

Here are just a few takes on the situation:

NHS contract delays hit Accenture (BBC)
Accenture Gets a Little Sick (Motley Fool)
British agency expects Accenture to deliver on contract (Reuters)
UK NHS Blasts Accenture Over Delays (Datamonitor Computerwire)

I don't envy the consultants working on those assignments, do you?! Tony

Recruitment websites

Thanks to the 1,300+ management consultancy candidates that took part in this year's poll. It's critical for us as a means of keeping track on whether or not we're still the number 1 choice for candidates looking for a job in consulting.

Fortunately this year's results again show that we are top of the pile, with the majority of all respondents voting us their preferred site for finding a consulting job. THANK YOU for taking part and giving us this glowing endorsement.

Tony

Fast-growing start-up consultancies

Each year we run a reader poll to discover the fastest-growing new consultancies in the industry. These can be some of the most exciting places to work, but they don't always make it onto the public's radar until they've already achieved fame and fortune. By discovering them in their early stages we can both help them to become established - and also give readers some pointers of firms they might wish to target as employers...

If you work for a fast-growing new firm, you've got just a few weeks to submit your firm as a candidate for inclusion in the 2006 report. You can nominate a firm by visiting this URL.

Looking forward to sharing the results with you around Easter time. Tony

Recruitment Consultants

We've just finished compiling the results of this year's candidate survey, detailing the recruitment agencies you've had the best experiences of using, the job boards and newspapers you read most often and so on. Tons of insights and useful data for both management consultancy candidates and management consultancy recruiters alike. The full report is now downloadable (details below), but in particular I wanted to give special recognition to 7 recruitment consultants who were highly rated by our readers. We're always being asked for recommendations of recruiters that candidates should speak with - so here's a definitive list as voted for by you the Top-Consultant readership!

The following 7 individuals consistently exceeded candidate expectations in providing a thoroughly professional interface between candidate and client. Congratulations to:

>> Chris Sale - Prism Executive Recruitment

>> Martin Hancock - Prism Executive Recruitment

>> Angela Heath - Beament Leslie Thomas

>> Andrew Bott - EM Consulting

>> Nick Coppin - Acumen Search (formerly @ Madison Maclean)

>> Karl Mann - The Cornell Partnership

>> Victoria Lack - Prism Executive Recruitment


Hats off to all 7 of you!

Tony

PS a full copy of the report can be downloaded from this page

Salaries in Consulting

Big £$ salaries and Management Consulting used to go hand-in-hand, back in the good old dot-com days. With the consultancy market having rebounded of late, our suspicion has been that firms would be forced to pay more - come the 2005/06 pay review window...

... and now at last we can prove that this has indeed been the case. Our salary benchmarking report has just been published, based on data from over 1,000 participating management consultants. What's interesting is the wide range in salaries, pay rises / promotions and bonus payments of late. There have been some real winners in the recent consulting upturn - and others that have fared much less well.

Which category do you fall into?

Well now you can find out, because this report is available as a free download to all Top-Consultant readers. You can get your copy (in PDF format) from:
http://www.top-consultant.com/salary_report_2006.pdf

Any feedback on this year's report much appreciated. Do post your comments below...

Tony