16 consulting firms recognised for client excellence at MCA Awards

The annual MCA Awards has celebrated the work of Management Consultancies Association members in 2017, handing award nods to 16 different firms at a ceremony in London’s Westminster Bridge Hotel.

As the industry continued to expand beyond the £9 billion mark last year, consulting firms in the UK enjoyed a bumper 2017. Celebrating the continuous growth of the UK’s management consulting industry, the MCA Awards have marked out a number of consulting firms for commendation thanks to their engagements last year. The Awards, now in their 21st year, have become a benchmark for quality within the consulting industry.

Sixteen consulting firms were announced as winners at the 2018 MCA Awards. The black-tie event saw prizes handed out to a broad-cross section of the British consulting industry. The night’s biggest winners were undoubtedly PwC Advisory and Deloitte Consulting, who picked up 12 nods between them. See the article 'PwC and Deloitte steal the show at MCA Awards' for a detailed analysis.

Fourteen more consulting firms were celebrated at the Westminster Bridge Hotel, London, at the end of April. These included Simon-Kucher Partners, Coeus Consulting, Jacobs, OEE Consulting, PPL, Thales Cyber & Consulting, Arup, Egremont Group, Carnall Farrar, IBM, GE Healthcare Partners, Proudfoot, Turner & Townsend Suiko, and Atos, who all won awards, or were highly commended for their efforts throughout 2017.

Global consulting firm Simon-Kucher walked away a winner at the annual MCA Awards, winning the Best New Consultancy Award, which recognises a MCA member who is entering the awards for the first time. The consultancy saw global revenues break the €250 million barrier last year, and topped a successful year by scooping an award which the MCA says demonstrates client focus, delivery excellence, commitment to people and operational excellence. Two firms were also highly commended for the award – with IT firm Jacobs and transformations consultancy Coeus Consulting both honoured for their work.

Simon-Kucher Board member and UK Managing Partner Mark Billige was present to receive the firm’s Best New Consultancy trophy. Commenting on the result, he said, “The MCA awards are highly coveted by all the UK consultancy firms and the competition is always strong. We are particularly proud to win Best New Consultancy given the focus placed in the judging process on our people and culture. We were able to demonstrate what sets Simon-Kucher apart, both internally and with our clients, factors we feel are paramount to our continuing success and growth.”

Meanwhile, the firm was also highly commended in the Commercial Excellence category, using analytics and research to help London 2017 World Championships & World Para Athletics with ticket pricing. The games went on to bring in a direct economic impact of almost £110 million to London.

Lauren Carter, Director & Project Manager at Simon-Kucher added, “We have a lot of experience helping landmark sporting events, such as the London World Championships and numerous other sporting world cups, score gold on the commercial side so we were delighted to be on the finalists’ podium here.”

Engineering consultancy Arup also performed well at the awards, being named in three categories. The firm, which is also involved in the revamp of London’s Euston Station, was handed a win in the Social & Environmental Value for its work with Transport for London, in order to tackle blind spot-related heavy goods vehicle accidents in the nation’s capital. Arup was further recognised as being highly commended in the Best Use of Thought Leadership section – for a study with C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group spelling out the urgency of climate change – and in Strategy, where the firm assisted Saudi Aviation IT as part of Saudi Arabia’s sweeping modernisation programme.  

Three firms were also outlined for Consulting Excellence. The category, divided into three, handed prizes to OEE Consulting for Client Service & Value; PPL – which celebrated its tenth anniversary last year – for Ethical Behaviour; and Thales Cyber and Consulting (who also sponsored the Digital & Technology Consultant of the Year award) for Professional Development, having launched the Consultant Development Programme to bridge a gap between the technical skills of consultants and their behavioural skillsets.

Commenting on their success, OEE Consulting said, “We are now building on these foundations by developing our proposition and people based on direct client requirements. This will allow us to provide increased strategic engagement and technology integration to our clients, providing a platform for mutual success in 2018 and beyond.”

Global IT and business specialist IBM was meanwhile presented with the award for Customer Engagement. Big Blue’s work with Barclays saw the firm help deliver an end-to-end virtual banking experience, and saw the client praise the firm’s efforts, saying, “IBM were different they looked like they wanted to partner with the business to truly understand what was going on. The insights that you delivered really opened our eyes to things that were right in front of us that we couldn’t see. It was pretty special really.”

Carnall Farrar saw its project with the with Devon Sustainability and Transformation Partnership yield an award too, winning the Change Management in the Public Sector prize for the firm’s trouble. The health consultancy helped to build a new care model, using the closure of 70 community hospital beds to save money and provide better outcomes for patients.

Commenting on the project, the firm said, “A real lasting legacy has been the whole region working together towards a shared vision after a period of difficult relationships. The programme fostered a strong regional working relationship which remains in place and has continued to strengthen over time, despite subsequent personnel changes.”

Fellow health sector consultancy GE Healthcare also triumphed at the MCA Awards. The firm gathered the International award, having partnered with the Saudi Arabia' Ministry of Health, to help boost the sector ahead of the Kingdom's 2030 plans – while specialist mining and materials consultancy Proudfoot was also highly commended in the category for its work with the Rio Tinto (Oyu Tolgoi) copper-mining project in Mongolia.

GE Healthcare’s role with the Saudi Health Ministry was also highly commended in the Performance Improvement in the Public Sector. The category was won by Atos Consulting, which took gold for its work with Genomics in order to facilitate a digital cancer treatment fast tracking process. Genomics England is a pioneering government programme to bring advanced genomic medicine out of the laboratory and into standard NHS services. According to Atos, Genomics England is now on track to meet its 100,000 genomes target by the end of 2018. Results are indicating that 6 out of 10 cancer patients could receive better outcomes and receive treatments more personalised to their DNA and mutation of cancer.

Also highly commended at the MCA Awards were Turner & Townsend Suiko, in the Performance Improvement in the Private Sector – for the firm’s work with building materials giant Tarmac to develop an Asphalt Optimisation Programme – and the Egremont Group. The group’s work with Snapfish helped to transform the business from falling sales of 10% per year, to 10% growth in 2017.

The firm commented, “We helped Snapfish to rediscover what they stood for, turn the company and culture around, and deliver what customers wanted. We helped them create an environment in which people could flourish, giving them a  purpose beyond turning up at work every day.”