Seamus300

Thats nothing!
I contract at one of large utility companies and the IT work force is about 60% consultant, 25% contract and 15% permie. The very senior consultants are charged in at approximatly £480 an HOUR!! So for a standard 7.5 hour day we're talking £3600 and thats a standard day remember! The developer consultants range from £400 (graduate) to £1200 (senior AP) a day!

The beauty of all this is that they won't pay me overtime for working the weekend (14 hours Sat and 11 on Sun, total of 78 for the week of which I am paid for 52.5) and they won't pay decent salaries to the permies so they're all leaving and they can't replace them. It's OK though because the consultancies have loads more people they can bring in. Genius.

[Edited by Seamus300 - 10/2/2002 7:28:24 AM]

ProperCharlie

It would be hard to convince me that anyone is really worth these sort of prices. £100 per hour maybe, £1000+ per hour no feckin way. Just cos the likes of anderson etc charge this sort of money doesn't mean it's reasonable, it just means they're making too much profit. Plus they still screw up, so there's no guarantee that you're going to get what you want. At least when a £30/hr techie screws up, you just sigh and get someone else in.

Charlie.

[Edited by ProperCharlie - 10/2/2002 8:30:19 AM]

Seamus300

Since I have contracted here (I am in my 6th year) I have found the most expensive consultancies to be generally the most useless. They bring a team of 20 odd people in to "save" the project when all the business really needed to do was spend a day talking to the people who work here. They make statements like "you're over-managed" and "your planning isn't very good" etc all straight from a text book. We see them replacing company names on documents then announce it as the new strategy etc. You're right about the scope, without a signed off, cast in stone scope that the business agree to you can't plan anything. Tell me why we are about to go into a 6 week planning phase when this isn't the case? Why're they trying to implement a develoment standard that won't work with the type of systems we have?
Don't get me wrong, there are probably about 6 different consultancies in here and the people from at least 3 of them have been excellent, funnily enough that includes the one that only charges average contract rates...
Jealous? Not me, they don't individually get paid anything like what they are contracted in at.


[Edited by Seamus300 - 10/2/2002 9:15:14 AM]

Mark Jackson

Had a company in today to quote on a project, they suggested that we take 3 of thier consultants for about 3 months, 10 grand to scope the project and then 3 months of

1 * Principal consultant at 1250 a day
2 * Consultants at 900 a day

HOW !!!!!!

are they taking the p1ss or is this typical, I am going to be worth wads by the time I have done a year of this.

I cant see how any computer bod is worth that much for one day, its about 150 and hour ffs. The go for a poo and it costs about 15 quid !

imlach

what kind of work and where? We're about to lose 1/3 of our software workforce and some of us are thinking about whether software consultancy is a viable option......at these rates it obviously would be!!!!!!!

...but maybe we can do it for less....

MooseRacer

Depending on what they are doing, 1250 a day is about average. I've seen some SAP and Baan consultants being chrged out at 1400 and upwards a day!

dsmith

Everything's relative. Charge out rates for Accenture, Price waterhouse etc would make you weep. If its a big consultancy then your buying the "backup" and "knowledge" of the entire firm not just the actual consultants.

or b) its a feckin rip off

No consultant ever took a **** in 6 mins

Deano

Fatman

Agree - we've recently had a consultant in at £1200/day. It's nice work if you can get it!

dsmith

Everything's relative. Charge out rates for Accenture, Price waterhouse etc would make you weep. If its a big consultancy then your buying the "backup" and "knowledge" of the entire firm not just the actual consultants.

or b) its a feckin rip off

No consultant ever took a **** in 6 mins

Deano

MarkO

You have to remember that the kind of consultant who charges £1000 for an hour's work is normally only actually charging for 2-3 hour's work, but they will do a lot of background work which isn't actually directly chargeable.

Besides, you're only jealous.

ProperCharlie

Sure - I always wondered why I didn't become a solicitor:

£300/hr to talk on the phone
£300/hr to go for a drink with client
£300/hr to catch a taxi to chambers or client's office or anywhere else for that matter.

In the end of the day most people would love to make this kind of money, but I still thik it's reasonable to ask if it's actually *worth* it. Especially when they end up recommending that you compromise and agree to pay the other side's costs....

JealousCharlie

Makalu

My company charges similar fees for consulting work.

At the end of the day, if the results of the consultants work means your business is:
a) More profitable
b) More efficient
c) Reduces overheads
d) Saves money

Then it is probably worth spending out on.
Think of it this way - over time, your investment in these expensive peoples expertise will not only pay back the amount they cost in the first place, but should actually continue to provide benefits afterwards which would go straight to your companies bottom line.

Word of advice...
Pay for the Scoping excersize and get it done well. By paying for this work, you own the outcome of it which you can then use to get competitive quotes from other suppliers. If they do the scoping for free, the resulting work would belong to the consulting company not you. Make sure the scope includes tangible deliverables (ie. reduction in workforce by 5%, reduced costs of £20k per annum etc...) - this way if they fail to deliver these results after completing the work, you can get away with not paying them!

Mak.

DemonDave

iTrader: (13)

Mark,

Shove some details on here, we might be able to give you an idea if it is the right.

Dave.

Pete Croney

A consulting joke always springs to mind when I read things like this.

There is this shepherd, sitting on the side of the road, watching his flock, eating his packed lunch. He watches down the lane as a big new Range Rover with blacked out windows approaches. The Range Rover stops along side him and this lad in his mid twenties, wearing a very expensive suit gets out. The lad says to the shepherd "If I can correctly guess how many sheep you have, can I have one?". The shepherd, intrigued, agrees. The lad then goes to the back of the Range Rover, sets up his sat phone, goes on line with his laptop and dials into a survellance satellite. He repositions the satellite to view them from overhead and launches an optical recognition programme of the laptop. After a couple of minutes he informs the shepherd that he has 1762 sheep. The shepherd is stunned and concedes defeat.

As the consultant is packing away the equipment and his animal of choice, the shepherd says "If I can correctly guess your job, can we call it quits?". The lad agrees. "You're a consultant" says the shepherd. "How did you know?" comes the reply.

"Just a hunch. Now can I have my dog back please"

brickboy

What's the definition of a consultant? Someone who borrows your watch and then tells you what time it is

And before anyone starts protesting -- I'm a consultant

CrisPDuk

Did anyone ever see the C4 documentary about the effects of consultancy companies on the fortunes of three large companies that was on a while ago, one of the companies involved was Amstrad, Alan Sugar floated the company, the new board ousted him from control and put a team of consultants in to turn the companies fortunes around. They managed it to such stunning effect that Sugar was able to by the company back from the shareholders for almost a quarter of the value he originally floated it at!

I can't remember who the other two companies were, but I do recall that one of them was one of the largest heavy manufacturing companies in America, the board brought an image consultant in to advise on modernising the plants, he and his team milked the company to such an effect that it was bankrupt within 5 years.

GaryK

I just finished a few months consulting at a large insurance firm. Ive worked alongside PWC, Accenture EDS and the like when I was contracting but had the pleasure of working with CSC, never met such a bunch of muppets before!!! talk about incompetent, of course what you have to realise that these people are employees so although their charge out rate is £1600+ day their salary is no where near.

(O and some of 'em smelt of p*ss or BO and had very childish ringtones on their phones - how professional!)

Gary

Seamus300

Thats true, I am serenaded by Airwolf and the Flintstones on a regular basis. Fortunately none of them smell like ****, not that I make a habit of smelling them.

Don't think we have had CSC is here yet, maybe next year.

jasonwrxowner

Mark.

What skill set is it you are looking for?

Drop me an e-mail at jason@dialus.net. I might be able to help you out.

And my boss thinks I ain't working.

dnb

Don't remind me about CSC...

Mark Jackson

Cheers for all the replies, cant go into too much detail about the project but its basically a case of making mainframe data available via Oracle 9i AS and Java Server pages, our management have already laughd at the quote and we can get hold of experienced people for a fraction of the price, I am sure as hell going to learn the Java Server Pages/Beans/Application Server/Middle Tier/Thin Client + whatever buzzwords and make loads of cash !

Cant be that difficult can it, already nearly OCP qualified (on the way anyway) and I know what you mean about Juvenile ringtones, our current contractor is a top bloke and from the start had his phone set to discrete !