The ambience chaser

Dress down Fridays? Forget it. Been there, done that. In Ronnie Wilkie’s domain, it’s dress down everyday – apart of course from when he’s having his photograph taken.

But don’t think for a moment that life at global management and technology consultancy Booz.Allen & Hamilton, where Wilkie is operations director with responsibility for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, is as relaxed as its new dress code might suggest.

Nothing could be further from the truth. As Wilkie says in his forthright, no-nonsense, style: ‘It’s the year of the quick and the dead.’

He is referring to the speed at which the e-economy is moving. Clients looking to take advantage of the internet need solutions from their consultants faster than ever before – not least the traditional giants of the corporate world, very many of whom number among the client base of Booze.Allen. For Wilkie, that means putting in place the infrastructure required – at lightning speed.

A good example is a recent project to put together a ‘centre for innovation’ in the City where Booze.Allen’s consultants are working alongside a major client to create an e-business. ‘Two months ago, the senior partner of our worldwide technical business came to me and said he had a tremendous multi-million pound opportunity for the firm. He asked if I could set up a ‘funky centre’ and have his people in it – 50 consultants in total – in two months. Traditionally this is at least a 10 month job. This is the change,’ says Wilkie.

The biggest technical challenge was finding a way to incorporate the 2mb internet pipe feed. The next step was to create the right kind of atmosphere. ‘The basics for the centre were computing power, an open plan environment and a systems room,’ says Wilkie. ‘Then there was a gear shift to creating a fun environment that would stimulate creativity.’ Hence the addition of table football games and lava lamps, world-time clocks and the like.

No one knows how quickly the e-business being set up alongside the client in the innovation centre will grow, so Wilkie opted for a long-contract serviced-office solution. That meant accepting a higher monthly cost, but: ‘We have the flexibility to grow in the same building,’ says Wilkie.

The e-economy will continue to bring this kind of step change in client requirements – Booze.Allen has ‘a multitude’ of such centres in the pipeline, says Wilkie – and it is also bringing challenges to the consultants themselves. A recent US report suggests the kind of employment global management consultants such as Booze.Allen can offer in e-consultancy is stifling the potential ‘brain drain’ of business school graduates to the dotcom companies. Nevertheless, their presence will inevitably exacerbate what Wilkie refers to as the ‘demographic war for talent’.

This war for talent makes creating the kind of workplace culture – or ambience as Wilkie describes it – that can provide the support and inspiration that Booze.Allen’s professional staff need more important than ever. ‘Ambience is the mystical thing – what makes this office feel like home to me,’ says Wilkie. ‘It affects our ability to recruit. There is a right ambience for a bank and for professional services,’ he adds. ‘There is a demographic war for talent with multiple offers for the best students. To award them appropriate compensation is just not enough – none of us wants to spend two thirds of our working life in place we don’t like.’

It’s about creating an invigorating, stimulating and non-hierarchical environment from which we can deliver superior professional services.

The decision six months ago to encourage staff to cast off the suit – the traditional garb of the management consultant – fits with an emphasis on the ‘softer’ features of the working environment. ‘It’s about the creative ambience and the guts of the building – not the shell,’ says Wilkie. ‘Its about creating an invigorating, stimulating and non-hierarchical environment from which we can deliver superior professional services.’ Ditto the table football games and lava lamps of the innovation centre, where many of the staff have moved from dotcom businesses. ‘There is a plethora of choice and we want to look beyond the dotcoms to a career choice.’ Referring to the table football, Wilkie says: ‘If that’s what people want, I don’t care as long as they are efficient, happy and productive. If milk crates is what it takes, milk crates they shall have.’

The approach across the whole of Booze.Allen’s portfolio has been to keep assets ‘lean and mean’: ‘We look at facilities as an investment for the period of time it is needed – we don’t waste money, and we don’t make a big statement,’ says Wilkie. Five years ago Booze.Allen’s London team moved into Savoy Court on The Strand in London. The move provided an opportunity to experiment with a different approach to office space use, with the focus on more cost effective ‘space booking’ and desk sharing systems. The success of this approach has seen Savoy Court become a test bed for other Booze.Allen offices – eight in the European portfolio now feature shared space. ‘We did our homework and got a BCO award in the process,’ says Wilkie. ‘The principle was to create the appropriate space and service for the time it was needed.’

Where once every consultant had their own desk, now each desk is shared between 2.5 people – and the cost savings are obvious: ‘There is no excuse in the information age for a professional services company not to be looking at creative office use, but this has to be done with a sensitivity that nurtures the culture of the business,’ says Wilkie.

Another key requirement for Savoy Court has been effective knowledge management. While much of this is met by the company intranet, hard knowledge is managed by the local secretaries. ‘The focal point is rotating storage – we are constantly tipping out and bringing in,’ says Wilkie.

The advent of shared space has driven change in requirements for internal services. A concierge is now employed who is responsible for the upkeep of the meeting room space on the visitors’ floor, room bookings, and the provision of presentation equipment. ‘They look after the ambience of this place – and make sure it runs like a well oiled clock,’ explains Wilkie. Services such as dry cleaning are also available.

With e-business playing such a significant part in Booze.Allen’s workload, it’s no surprise to find Wilkie looking at e-procurement options. Travel for example, is a candidate – now only the most complex deals are handled by a travel agency. ‘The problem with e-ticketing is that users forget to cancel if their requirements change, so we need vendors who are able to handle this,’ explains Wilkie. ‘Our selection of travel firms was based on their ability to meet us face-to-face electronically.’

Demand for other products and services has yet to add up: ‘We assist our clients with e-procurement but for ourselves the volumes are not there yet. If you do 100,000 transactions, the cost rockets down. If volumes are small there is no benefit.’ Buysites meanwhile are, in Wilkie’s opinion, currently at an aspirational rather than practical stage.

Of course no self respecting management consultant – and certainly not one involved in advising on e-business solutions – would be seen in an office without a cybercafe. But at Booze.Allen the cybercafe, created as part of the original fit-out, is really a learning zone, helping to forge a working culture that is about continual development. Over coffee, staff can log onto computers that are loaded up with keynote speeches prepared by the firm’s consultants from across the world, with a facility to ask those consultants questions. And each month a different department takes over the cybercafe to try out new ideas.

Last month, for example, the cybercafe became a place for staff to try out a new teleconferencing system. The idea was to encourage them to use it to replace travel. ‘People are learning by osmosis, because it is fun,’ says Wilkie.