PIPC makes Fast Track 100 list two years in a row

Interview with PIPC UK Managing Director Phil Dunmore, by Mick James

Top Consultant, 7 February 2008

Given the recent growth across the board in consultancy, I was surprised to hear that only one firm, PIPC, had made the 2007 Sunday Times Fast Track 100 list -- there were several in 2006. What’s even more remarkable is that this is the second year running that PIPC have been on the list, improving their position from 36 to 32.

UK Managing Director Phil Dunmore sees this as the most significant aspect.

“Being in the Fast Track 100 for the second year running has been the result of considerable growth over the last 3-4 years. However, we’re very conscious of the need to strengthen ourselves on the back of past successes by broadening our leadership and management team both in the UK and globally in order to continue our growth.”

Founded in 1992, PIPC has grown to 12 offices worldwide and over £20 million turnover. The aim of its original founders was to “revolutionise” the management consultancy industry with a pragmatic focus on programme and project management.

“We do one thing and we do it extremely well, “says Dunmore. “We wanted to get away from the ‘next big thing’ slightly pretentious consultancy approach and actually deliver some real results for clients, applying some much needed common sense.”

Avoiding bureaucracy and some of the cultural problems that bedevil larger consultancies has been a major focus as PIPC has grown.

“We want to give people the space to thrive, and not have a big hierarchy,” says Dunmore. “You could be quite junior, but if you’ve got a relationship with a Senior Executive then you go out and build on it. You can have the opportunity to build a component of a new business in a company that’s already thriving -- you don’t get that opportunity in a big firm.”

PIPC is structured to create a high focus on team rather than individual success, with all employees given the opportunity to share ownership of the firm based on their contribution.

“It is absolutely a team game,” says Dunmore. “We want to maintain that culture and not go back to the old partnership model. There’s so much competition and inappropriate behaviour exhibited in those organisations.”

The team approach is exhibited very much in the firm’s growth strategy, which is to build on past successes in project and programme management, extending their reach across new sectors and providing a wider range of business solutions.

“As we grow and build a track record in a particular sector, we capitalise on that by bringing in people with more knowledge and leadership of that sector,” says Dunmore. “So people are not starting with a blank sheet of paper, they have a core business to build on.”

One such “door opener” is the firm’s niche expertise in post M&A integration, which now accounts for 35% of its business.

“We’ve done about 30 large scale integrations as a company,” says Dunmore. “When you’ve built that sort of track record it becomes of interest to large international firms.”

Although the economic outlook may be more uncertain than it has been for years, Dunmore says he hasn’t seen any effect on the pipeline. But the firm is managing its risk by broadening its base, not just into new sectors and verticals, but also in new geographies. At the moment, the Middle East is proving fertile ground for the sort of high-level project skills PIPC can deploy.

“There’s a lot of investment going on across the region in all the different sectors,” he says. “Given the level of investment, it’s very valuable for them to be able to inject knowledge and experience from people who have done it before to give them the assurance that these investments are well-managed.”

Despite a tight recruitment market, staffing these projects has not been a problem.

“We never find it difficult to find people who want to work there,” says Dunmore. “The scale of some of the projects is unbelievable.”

PIPC recruits exclusively senior people, drawing recruits from both industry and consultancy, often recruiting ex-consultants who want to come back into the industry. This level of experience forms the core of PIPC’s offering.

“You can’t create programme managers in a classroom any more than you can create a CEO by sending someone to do an MBA,” says Dunmore. “You have to have been there and done it, and it’s that type of people that can add real value to clients.”

Although it’s always a challenge to find the right people, the investment is paying dividends, particularly in a newly expanding area for PIPC -- helping clients deal effectively with “green” issues and the “carbon agenda”. It’s an area that’s rapidly moving past pure compliance and corporate rhetoric, into more tangible investments, such as Marks & Spencer’s announcement it was investing £200 million into environmental initiatives.

“For example, lots of people talked about how they want to be carbon neutral by 2010 without really knowing what that means or how to deliver it,” says Dunmore. “Now people are putting money into this and they expect a return. It becomes an investment like anything else that needs to be delivered in a structured manner, that will deliver tangible business results. Things have changed in the last 18 months -- people want to see results rather than just nice words.”

That’s a change in attitude that can only play to PIPC’s strengths in the long term.

“We translate nice words into tangible client benefits,” Dunmore says. Ultimately this has been the bedrock of PIPC’s success over recent years across all sectors, from Financial Services and Retail, to Telecoms and Public Sector.