Crimson & Co comment on how “It pays to get expert advice” - February 2008
Date – 19th February 2008
Published – Evening Standard
Contact – Richard Powell
It pays to get expert advice - Consultancy is a rapidly expanding business in the UK, both for established players and newer, more niche outfits
A key word in the modern consultancy is focus, with consultancies increasingly looking for the area where they can deliver the maximum value to their clients. “We’re very specifically focused on the end-to-end supply chain, rather than any part of it, from supplier to customer,” says Managing Director of Crimson & Co Richard Powell. “But that doesn’t mean we’re generalists… the end-to-end focus is a specialism in itself.”
Crimson & Co consultants, who are equally drawn from ‘big 4’ backgrounds and from industry, offer advice that runs the gamut from main board vision and strategy to implementation. Lately the company has become involved in a lot of business turnaround work. “We work with the management team on what can quite often be radical surgery to turn sales around before the banks pull the plug,” says Powell. “There are a lot of things you can do in a supply chain to make a rapid impact on the business.”
But a more long-term driver of Crimson & Co’s business has been the quest of clients to drive down costs, leading them to extend their supply chains and distribution networks into ever more far-flung and low-cost locations. “Historically we’ve consulted a lot in the UK, with the odd foray overseas,” says Powell. “Now a large proportion of the work we do is global, whether in Eastern Europe, Latin America or the Middle East.” The outsourcing of those traditional operations leads to a number of challenges, not least to maintain quality while reaping the benefits of lower cost. Crimson & Co is increasingly involved in providing the benchmarking and certification required to underpin that search for global supply chain excellence, which in turn leads to implementation projects to deliver those bottom line benefits. “That kind of consulting requires a certain type of person, people who are culturally aware and who understand the different cultures and different client options” says Powell. “That’s why we’ve been able to succeed at this level, because we’ve been able to recruit those global, cosmopolitan kind of people.”
Powell says the plan is for Crimson & Co to double in size in the next three or four years. “We’re looking to recruit people who are very pragmatic and can come up with solutions that work in practice rather than blue-sky thinking,” he says.