41 consultancy firms battle for The MCA's 2019 awards
The MCA Awards – the flagship event for excellence in UK’s consulting industry – is set for its largest and most competitive edition ever. The organisation will now task a jury of 30 experts with shortlisting potential winners, before handing out top prizes at a special gala ceremony on Thursday 28th March 2019 in London.
The representative body for the UK’s £10 billion consulting industry, the Management Consultancies Association (MCA), has received a record number of entries for the 2019 MCA Awards, with 41 companies from across the breadth of the UK consulting sector entering the competition. This represents growth of a fifth on the total number of entries received by the MCA last year, while the ceremony to announce the winners will be hosted in March 2019. That will be the 22nd incarnation of the MCA Awards.
The MCA has been its industry’s collective voice for more than six decades, with its members making up more than 60% of the UK consulting industry, and employ roughly 45,000 professionals, while working with more than 90 of the leading FTSE 100 companies and the vast majority of the public sector. As a result, the yearly MCA Awards have become a major date in the calendars of the UK’s leading management consultancies over the past two decades. The event commends best practices and recognises high-quality performance in UK consultancies across three areas, with awards for client excellence handed out in the process.
The 2019 event in Park Plaza Westminster Bridge Hotel will celebrate top performers across 21 categories. This will see gongs distributed to winners in 12 project categories, 5 individual categories and 4 overall awards; of these, nine are brand new classifications. In the projects segment of the ceremony, the MCA will debut prizes for Change and Transformation in the Private Sector; Change and Transformation in the Public Sector; Customer Engagement and Marketing; and Innovation in Digital and Technology. Meanwhile, the individual wing will feature trophies for Team Leader Consultant of the Year; Thought Leader Consultant of the Year; Innovation Consultant of the Year and Outstanding Achievement.
Finally, the MCA has also introduced a prize which recognises firms that have best adopted the body’s Consulting Excellence Principles. In 2016, the MCA introduced nine principles across ethics, client service & value and professional development that according to the organ comprise a ‘hallmark of quality for management consulting firms’. Speaking on the new award, new MCA Chief Executive Tamzen Isacsson explained, “The winner in this category will have to demonstrate their commitment to, and understanding of, the practical implications of the Principles of Consulting Excellence.”
Recognising the value of consultancy
This will be the first ceremony with Isacsson at the helm of the organisation, and commenting on the event as a whole, she said, “The MCA Awards provide an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the important work consultants do, both in teams and individually, on projects across the private and public sector."
The selection of winners will be performed by a jury of 30 experts, consisting of business leaders, consultants with an established track record, journalists and academics, among others*. The process of shortlisting will take place shortly, with the finalists for the MCA Awards set to be announced early in the New Year. Isacsson says that as a result of the high quality of entries, she expects “judges have their work cut out for themselves and we can expect some long, intense judging sessions.”
“The MCA Awards provide a high profile platform to recognise the great achievements in consulting, both in teams and individually, on projects across the private and public sector, as well as to demonstrate its value to the UK economy and wider society,” concluded Isacsson.
Last year 16 different consulting firms managed to scoop a prestigious MCA Award. PwC Advisory and Deloitte Consulting dominated, with the two members of the Big Four scooping a total of 12 accolades between them. Among the other consulting firms celebrated at the 2018 MCA Awards were 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.
* The jury for the MCA Awards 2019: Andreas Credé (Director at Credé Associates), Andy Gannon (Executive Coach and Mentor), Carol Smith (Director of Client Services at Combat Street), Charlotte Sweeney OBE (Founder at Charlotte Sweeney Associates), Christoph Marr (Managing Director at Marr Procurement), David Bailey (Advisor to Professional Services Firms), David Smith (Board Level Commercial and Procurement Advisor), Dr. Duncan Robertson (Fellow in Management Studies at Oxford University), Edward Bickham (Managing Director at Extracting Value LTD), Jan Gower (Partner at Medway Consulting), Jen Stevenson (Head of Category Indirects at Your Housing Group), Julie Hodges (Associate Professor in Management at Durham University), Kirsty Birks (Strategy Director at Boost Drinks), Lesley Wilkin (Director / Co-Founder at Smart Space Learning Ltd), Mitchell Leimon (Department for Business Energy & Industrial Strategy at BEIS Corporate Services), Patrick Newberry (Non-Executive Director at Paragon Bank and Shepherd & Wedderburn LLP), Paula Sussex (CEO at Student Loans Company), Paul Collins (Chairman at Equiteq), Paul Vincent (Managing Director at Sapient Professional Services), Rachel Sanders (Director & Co-Founder at Westmount Partners Ltd), Rob Garner (Advisor | Director | Investor), Sally Scutt (Strategic Advisor at International Compliance Association), Sandra Macleod (CEO at Mindful Reputation), Simon Atkinson (Chief Knowledge Officer at Ipsos MORI), Simon Clark (Adviser), Stefan Stern (Columnist), Vicky Pryce (Board Menber at CEBR), Vlatka Hlupic (Professor of Business and Management at University of Westminster), William Etchell (CFO at Education Placement Group), William Johnson (Managing Director at The Openside Group).
