Working with Consultants - A Client Perspective
Duncan Howorth is the Managing Director of Benefit Solutions at Jardine Lloyd Thompson (JLT) and a long standing and valued client of Morgan Clarke. He kindly agreed to share his thoughts about the business challenges at JLT together with his views of working with external consultants.
JLT is one of the world’s leading providers of international risk management, insurance and reinsurance broking. It has a substantial employee benefits business which provides employee benefits, administration, reward and related consultancy advice and expertise.
Duncan explains the challenges that Benefit Solutions had been facing and what action was taken to overcome them:
“There were increasing pressures. As the pensions and benefit market hardened, clients’ needs changed and competitors increasingly offered comprehensive solutions. Internally we were not structured in a way that allowed us to offer end-to-end solutions easily to clients, which meant that business opportunities were being missed.
To address this challenge we changed our operating model and brought together
a number of technically focused groups. This re-structuring now allows us to offer more effective support to our clients.
During this period of upheaval there were problems, as you would expect, when we asked people to work in different ways and in different groups; for example, asking people to accept and embrace culture change, getting them to bond and knit together in new working relationships and helping them to accept the challenges and opportunities that change of this kind brings”.
Why Duncan chose Morgan Clarke to help:
“I chose Morgan Clarke because they understand our business, take a facilitative approach that helps us draw out our own answers, they are not scared to make recommendations, are prepared to tackle issues head on and are focused on getting results.
We regard Morgan Clarke as one of the JLT team and a trusted business partner”.
When working with consultants Duncan believes that:
“Trust is important, so that I feel comfortable and completely confident about being open about our business and what we are trying to achieve. I also think it’s important not to constrain the consultants and to allow them some flexibility. Setting, reviewing and agreeing measurable targets are important.
I don’t enjoy working with consultants that are too prescriptive, don’t get to know my business, don’t take ownership for their part and don’t work with us in a strategic alliance”.
On the assignments that Morgan Clarke has delivered at JLT, Duncan describes our contribution as follows:
“They expressed views, but didn’t impose solutions. They are excellent at building rapport and have become our trusted advisors. They have contributed to the formulation of our strategy for the business.
In terms of business benefits to JLT, both client retention and business growth have improved and we are now in a stronger market position. We have also retained a stronger management team and have achieved good financial results”.
If your organisation faces similar challenges or you would like to discuss this article in more detail then contact John Baldwin on + 44 (0)1306 621600 or email him at john.baldwin@morgan-clarke.co.uk