Five partners and four analysts. The ratio is the whole business model and it is why we cannot take your project next week.
Every partner here spent between eight and fifteen years at a large strategy house. We left for the same reason, which is that the leverage model puts the least experienced people closest to the work.
Ashgrove inverts it. Five partners, four analysts, four live engagements. A partner is in every working session and writes the recommendation themselves.
Said plainly, because a bad engagement costs you more than it costs us.
If the decision is already made and what you need is a consultant's name on the cover, there are firms who will do that. It is not dishonest work; it is simply not ours.
The model does not work at that size. An experienced hire or a good interim will serve you better and cost less.
We have walked away from engagements over this. Without customer-level and product-level data, the work is opinion dressed up as analysis.
Four at a time means a queue of four to eight weeks. Only turnaround work jumps it.
Building the thing, staffing the PMO, running the programme for a year — that is a different firm with a different cost base.
We will tell you what the business needs to be able to do. We will not tell you which ERP to buy, and firms that do both have an obvious conflict.
