Capability Transfer or Consultant Dependency?

The consulting business model rewards creating dependency. Not maliciously. Not through deliberate design to exploit clients. Simply through economic logic: revenue correlates with consultant time deployed, profit maximises when clients return for repeated interventions, growth requires expanding client relationships. The incentive structure is clear - consultants succeed when clients need them continuously, struggle when clients develop capability making consultants unnecessary.

This creates fundamental misalignment. Client success means building organisational capability to deliver complex projects without external dependence. Consultant success, measured conventionally, means exactly the opposite. The commercial model incentivises consultants to be valuable rather than to transfer value. To solve problems rather than build problem-solving capability. To deliver outcomes directly rather than enable client teams to deliver outcomes independently.

The Government recognises this pattern. Public procurement consultation aims to grow British industry, jobs, and skills through contract requirements - addressing real capability gaps in delivery sectors. The intention acknowledges that decades of outsourcing strategic capability to consultants has left client organisations dependent on external expertise for functions that should be internal competencies. Procurement reform attempts to reverse this through contractual requirements for capability transfer, skills development, knowledge retention.

This is a noble objective, but an insufficient mechanism when consultant business models reward different behaviour. Contract clauses requiring capability transfer encounter incentive reality: consultants maximising revenue maintain client dependency whether intentionally or through accumulated commercial decisions favouring billable interventions over capability building. The consultant who successfully transfers capability works themselves out of a job. The consultant maintaining dependency secures ongoing revenue. Economic incentive is unambiguous.

This isn't an argument against consulting, we are consultants! Complex delivery requires specialist expertise, external perspective, additional capacity during transformation, diagnostic capability organisations cannot build overnight. The question is whether consulting relationships build client capability or perpetuate dependency. Whether success measures what client organisations can achieve independently or what consultants delivers repeatedly. Whether the model incentivises working yourself out of the job or ensuring the job continues indefinitely.

We believe the B Corp model provides an alternative framework. Certified B Corporations commit to stakeholder capitalism rather than shareholder primacy alone. Success measured by impact on workers, community, environment, customers - not just profit maximisation. The certification requires evidencing social and environmental performance, accountability, transparency. It's commitment to a business model that values purpose over profit, not a marketing claim.

When consultancy operates as B Corp, success metrics shift. Client capability development becomes a performance measure, not commercial threat. Knowledge transfer become core deliverables, not revenue reduction. Enabling client independence becomes a success indicator, not a business risk. The certification framework requires demonstrating positive stakeholder impact - which for a consultancy means showing how client organisations became more capable through engagement.

Advance Consultancy achieved B Corp certification because our founding principle rejects conventional consulting economics. We measure success by what clients can do without us after engagement ends, not by how long they continue requiring us. Our commercial model assumes finite relationships building infinite capability. We succeed when clients no longer need us for problems we've helped them learn to solve themselves. This isn't altruism. It's recognition that genuine value creation builds client capability, and client capability enables increasingly complex challenges requiring more sophisticated consulting support on new problems rather than repeated basic interventions on unchanged dysfunctions.  We use this embedded purpose to evolve what we do with clients to ensure continued capability building.

The capability transfer commitment manifests practically with diagnostic thinking designed to be learned internally. Intervention approaches are documented and transferred systematically, not retained as consultant expertise requiring ongoing access. Measurement frameworks enable clients to assess progress independently, not requiring consultant interpretation, but also recognising the genuine and evolving value of independence and support. Governance support that builds client governance capability, not substitutes for it. Every engagement is designed with exit strategy explicit from the beginning - what will client organisation be able to do independently when this engagement concludes?

This creates commercial discipline. We cannot coast on relationship longevity. We cannot rely on client dependency for revenue security. We must demonstrate value through measurable capability transfer. We must earn each engagement on merit rather than inertia. The pressure concentrates effort on genuine transformation rather than repeated firefighting, sustainable improvement rather than temporary relief, capability building rather than problem-solving-as-a-service.

This model also attracts different clients. Organisations wanting consultant dependency - someone to blame, someone to delegate accountability, someone to maintain when internal capability building feels too demanding - don't engage B Corp consultancies measuring success by working themselves out of jobs. Organisations committed to capability development, prepared to invest in internal learning, willing to take ownership of transformation rather than outsource it - these engage consultancies aligned to capability transfer objectives. And, counter-intuitively, those client relationships endure.

The current market context intensifies the capability imperative. Energy transition requires UK delivery capacity that doesn't exist at the scale needed. Infrastructure transformation demands skills government acknowledges procurement alone cannot magic into existence. The water sector faces enormous investment requirements alongside capability and regulatory constraints. Data centre expansion creates a skilled workforce demand that exceeds supply. Major projects across all sectors face capability challenges that consultant dependency worsens rather than resolves.

Patagonia demonstrates how a purpose-driven business model creates resilience during challenging market conditions. Their commitment to environmental sustainability and ethical business practices isn't performance cost - it's competitive differentiation creating customer loyalty and employee engagement that conventional businesses struggle to replicate. Similarly, consulting firms committed to capability transfer differentiate through alignment with client long-term interests rather than competing on conventional metrics favouring consultant dependency.

The contrast with greenwashing is instructive. Recent research shows FTSE 250 companies are not delivering real-world decarbonisation despite climate pledges - a performance gap revealing when sustainability becomes marketing rather than operational reality. The same pattern in consulting: firms claiming capability transfer whilst business models reward dependency. The gap between stated values and operational incentives creates a credibility deficit clients increasingly recognise and reject.

Breaking consultant dependency requires client commitment as much as consultant integrity. Client organisations must invest in internal capability development, create learning systems capturing external expertise, resist outsourcing strategic capabilities that should be internal competencies and measure consultant value by capability transferred not just problems solved. This demands an uncomfortable organisational acknowledgment: we've become dependent on consultants for capabilities we should have developed internally, and rebuilding those capabilities requires sustained investment beyond consultant fees.

The procurement consultation recognises this at policy level. Growing British industry requires capability building at scale across sectors. We cannot procure capability into existence through contract clauses when underlying business models - both client and consultant - incentivise dependency over development. This requires an integrated approach: procurement mechanisms enabling capability transfer, client organisations investing in learning systems, consultants measuring success by client independence, industry-wide recognition that sustainable delivery requires building capability not maintaining dependency.  This isn't "doing consultants out of a job", its ensuring consultancy evolves to continue adding real value, not just hours.

Consulting relationships should be finite by design, building infinite capability. The consultant who successfully transfers capability to a client organisation eliminates need for their services on that specific problem domain - and simultaneously demonstrates the value proposition for the next level of complexity requiring more sophisticated support. The relationship evolves from basic intervention to advanced capability to transformation partnership, each phase building a foundation for the next whilst eliminating dependency on the previous.

The measure of effective consulting isn't relationship longevity. It's client capability growth. Not how many years consultant remains engaged on the same problems (and failing to really solve them?) but how rapidly client organisation can solve those problems independently and tackle more complex challenges. Not consultant utilisation rates but client competence development. Not billable hours maximised but value transferred and retained.

This model threatens conventional consulting economics whilst aligning with client interests and policy imperatives. The threat reveals misalignment. If a consultant business model depends on client dependency, then consultant and client interests fundamentally diverge regardless of stated values. If consultant success requires client capability growth, interests align and relationship becomes genuinely partnership.

What would consulting look like if success meant working yourself out of a job? That's B Corp consultancy committed to capability transfer over dependency maintenance. That's what major projects require when delivery scale exceeds current capacity and building capability matters more than borrowing it repeatedly.  It also means those clients will actually come back to you to seek evolution.

How would you measure your consultants' success by what your team can do without them?

References

UK Government (2025) Public Procurement: Growing British Industry, Jobs and Skills - Consultation on Further Reforms to Public Procurement

B Corp Certification Framework. Certified B Corporations commit to stakeholder capitalism: evidencing social and environmental performance, accountability, transparency. Business model commitment not marketing claim

edie.net (2025) "How Patagonia Is Staying Resilient in the ESG Winter", edie.net Extra Podcast, 11 November 2025. Purpose-driven business model creates competitive differentiation and resilience

edie.net (2025) "FTSE 250 Companies Not Delivering Real-World Decarbonisation Despite Pledges", 3 December 2025. Gap between stated values and operational reality