The story of Partners in Change Consulting (PiC) begins with a tale of two Daves, as well as one of synchronicity. Dave Jepson and Dave Chatham, founders of PiC, were first introduced when they joined the same management consulting business on the same day in the early 2000s.

Since forming in 2018, PiC has grown rapidly, employing a number of Delivery Directors and Consultants. Bramble Hub recently met with one of the founders – Dave Jepson – and Delivery Director Jonny Man to find out more about the company.

Jonny and both Daves boast impressive CVs, with extensive consulting backgrounds, including working for large Public Sector organisations.

Dave outlined his experience: “I worked for 10 years at BT, specialising in Network Operations and Network Economics. Then, sponsored by BT, I studied for a Masters in Human Resources – I wanted to work in organization and performance optimization. I went back into an internal consultancy unit, and then employee relations. I did a lot of work on cultural and behavioural change”.

“After BT, I went to Coopers & Lybrand, in their Utilities Change practice, working in field force optimization, which is about trying to get your field operations as efficient as possible. We did a lot of work in queue management systems. Coopers were taken over by PWC, then IBM. I left there, joined Deloitte, and then later, met Dave Chatham when I joined another consulting firm.”

By 2018, each Dave had independently reached the point where they had decided it was time to move on. One day, attending a meeting in London, both missed their respective trains back up north, so they sat down together for a coffee. While talking, they discovered that both of them were considering leaving their employer, and began speculating about setting up a new consultancy. “If you’re going to set up a company, it’s better with two than one”, says Dave; and so Partners in Change was born.

“Our first client joined us before we even set up the business,” Dave says. “They took a leap of faith based on our individual track records. Today, Partners in Change has around 20 employees, and a pool of around 350 associates that we actively curate. We use our partner ecosystem to add value. We’re never in a rush to get a new client committed to work - we grow because the client asks us to do more. We’ve displaced larger consultancies on several occasions.”

The PiC Approach – the How and the What

Setting up their own venture allowed the PiC founders to craft a new culture from scratch. “The How is as important as the What, and our philosophy is based on partnering,” explains Dave C. “We’re as good as anyone at the What, but we’re great at the How. We don’t do change to our clients; we prefer to work with clients that have some in-house capability.”

Along with partnering, pragmatism is core to the PiC approach. “We start with small pieces of work, and we’re avowedly 80 / 20. We get the important things right first, rather than try to fix everything at once. We do have a methodology, but we’ll always tune it for the client.”

“We offer clients three levels of quality. At the top level, the project gets a full embedded delivery director (Jon, Dave and I are all delivery directors). Below that, we offer oversight from a delivery director who isn’t fully embedded. At the third level, we provide skills, but without formal oversight. And there’s a fourth level, at which we help clients to recruit their own team.”

Offering Value for Money

How does PiC compete with the market leaders for highly-skilled people? “We never deploy junior consultants – we always provide very experienced people, but at competitive prices. Our pricing is well below the Big Four, but we can match the big companies in capability. In the Big Four, the best consultants reach a certain level and then are forced down a sales track. We have people that wanted to continue doing what they were best at, rather than go down the sales route.”

Dave makes the point that the price of consulting has come down over the span of his career. “Services have become more commoditised. There’s a bigger pool of available freelancers, so clients can find standalone people if they want. We’re a little more expensive than using a standalone contractor, but we add significant value.”

Working in the Public Sector

Jonny comments: “Our ability to offer outstanding value for money is one of the reasons we want to work more with the Public Sector. Supplying to that sector is about more than business: it’s also about civic responsibility, giving something back. We feel the Public Sector tends to get poor value for money.”

Dave agrees: “I’ve done a lot of work in the Public Sector in the past. The big consultancies often charge fees in this sector that are excessive – sometimes even rapacious. Big organisations tend to move from one Big Four Supplier to the next. It’s a merry-go-round, and it doesn’t always provide good value for money.”

“Our clients love the flexibility we can provide that large consultancies simply don’t offer. For example, if we can do the job and fit in with client preferences by working three or four days a week, we’ll happily do that.”

For more information, and to make contact, please visit the Partners in Change partner page.