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How BJSS established its rising enterprise consulting providing

Hannah Tharp, Head of Consulting, BJSS

Since joining BJSS in 2018, Hannah Tharp has played an important role in building BJSS Consulting, which has grown explosively since then. With the expansion of the practice showing no signs of slowing down, the head of advisory at BJSS outlined BJSS’s ambitious plans for the years to come and how they will help clients meet changing technological, strategic and sustainability needs.

What prompted BJSS to set up its own management consultancy three years ago?

At BJSS, with over 27 years of experience, we have always prided ourselves on our ability to implement engineering delivery programs. In recent years, however, our customers have started talking to us about a wider range of challenges outside of our traditional area of ​​specialization in technology engineering. These challenges included delivering technical solutions end-to-end, including their strategic direction of travel, the business strategy for which they were designed, the design and implementation of programs, and how to drive lasting, sustainable change in their business. When we started helping our clients with these challenges, the consulting capacity of BJSS was formed.

How did you put the advisory arm into operation and what? Has the trip looked like this so far?

Since the team started in 2018, we’ve grown to nearly forty consultants, and our rate of growth is not slowing. When we introduced our advisory role, we focused on developing our services based on the challenges our clients faced and had difficulty finding partners who could meet those needs. We initially worked with existing BJSS clients such as NHS and ITV, helping them deliver business and technical strategies, especially in complex areas where their partner needed to understand both the business and IT elements of the strategy.

We have started to build an increasingly influential presence with our existing customers. As demand increased from both existing and new customers, we have expanded the number of services we offer and the breadth of skills we have on the team. During that time, our growth has been driven by one thing – our relentless focus on delivering results for our customers.

What have you achieved since starting the department and what were some of your most important insights?

Two areas with particular success were developing our portfolio of customers from the healthcare and retail sectors. Some of our earliest customers came from these industries. This means that we have gained in-depth experience and knowledge of the challenges faced by the industries. We have also been able to develop some exceptionally talented consultants who are at the forefront of these industries.

We had to grow and recruit quickly during this time. Even so, we have been fully focused on recruiting the best talent in the industry. So I’m incredibly proud of the team we have today and the results we deliver for our customers.

In that short time, the team has worked with some of the world’s largest companies, including a leading optical retailer, to help them navigate their new customer experience. We have also helped the NHS redesign patient travel to improve the user experience and improve accessibility.

As we approach our third year as a team, the Financial Times will recognize a highlight for everyone as one of the UK’s leading management consultancies – something we have achieved for the second year in a row.

What are the most important trends in management consulting for you?

Agile strategy: The past year has shown, more than most, that nothing is going entirely according to plan and that a solid strategy for a year, three, or five is unlikely to prepare your company for future success. Businesses need to spin and react strategically to changes in the market, changes in consumer behavior, or even global pandemics.

Companies are now trying to develop a more adaptable strategic approach. This means that a plan with familiar, traditional elements like a core vision and KPIs is implemented alongside the business objectives. However, an adaptive strategy is iteratively developed and deployed incrementally so that the company can correct course and pivot in response to market changes or based on the past success of its strategy.

Fast value: While all businesses are more geared than ever to success, our customers focus on delivering results early and often. This again supports the move away from multiannual strategies and waterfall deliveries that take years to achieve and move to an adaptive strategy with a portfolio of smaller initiatives that are tested on a small scale before companies support them.

Transformation partner: Customers are looking for consultancies that can support them all along the way, not just in determining strategic direction, product development or implementation. This means that consulting teams will need different skills, including a strong understanding of the technology. Our customers don’t want a best-guess-based recommendation report at the end of the day. You want to be reassured that this is the best approach for them because you have a deep understanding of the recommendation you are making and have done similar work.

Collaboration: We have seen this happen with our customers for the past three years, and it has never been more important. Customers want to work with partners they can trust. They want partners who will work with them, build their own skills, and better position them for success.

BJSS recently published a whitepaper, authored by you, entitled “A Strategy For Innovation: How Change Works For Your Business”. How do you implement this approach with your customers?

As part of developing an adaptive strategy, we recommend companies develop a portfolio approach. This includes moving away from supporting a big idea as the company’s only path to success and adopting and testing several smaller ideas. If these ideas look promising and produce results, we consider speeding them up. When ideas work unexpectedly or produce incorrect results, they should be abandoned quickly.

This is a big change for many organizations and often requires changes in operating models, governance, and culture. With the whitepaper we have published a guide on how companies can work in this way.

How do you intend to expand advice in the coming years?

Our consulting team has grown enormously over the past three years. We are proud to have helped well-known companies master complex challenges in times of great uncertainty. The relationships and references that we have developed mean that we are in an extremely fortunate position, one in which we have grown significantly over the past year, at a time that has proven to be challenging for many companies.

We have ambitious plans for the next few years. This includes hiring more talented consultants and increasing our talent by running our graduate school in the second year, as well as the planned introduction of a number of new services to the market. We also aim to branch out to a number of BJSS international locations, including New York.