Advice needed on breaking into Contracting (in Finance)

[MrMarkyMark]

because shareholders and regulators have heard of them

because shareholders and regulators have heard of them

because shareholders and regulators have heard of them

Eh?!

Clients are not the same as shareholders and regulators.

Did you go to school?

[PermMCCon]

Hi Guys,

This is an interesting thread... to be or not to be a contractor, why art thou a contractor?

There are two sides of the camp, would be interested to see what others think:

+
+ Usual reasons, owning my destiny, seeing different clients, variety of work etc
+ Flexibility in general, including pay. Yes yes I know everyone will argue that we "just about scrape enough to live", but lets not kid ourselves, as a contractor (especially in FS) things are not so bad. Not getting paid much mroe than pre '08? Many permies are in the same boat
+ Continuous change by orgs and regs. Change is good, as it means (in general for some big orgs) a requirement for contractors or consultants to help to implement the change
+ Continuous Tech advancement changing process-people-tech org landscape. Same as above, cont and cons needed to help

-
- Dividend changes Apr '16
- Potential T&E expenses Apr '16
- Hundreds of thousands more permies taking Voluntary Redundancies, with a % joining contracting market
- At the same time, a feeling (from what I have read on various threads) that the market is shrinking a little bit
- Consultancies feeling the pinch and lowering their rates

Feel free to add to the above. There were a lot of "doom and gloom" threads on here, but looking at the above its not great, but maybe not as bad as some are making out?

[pr1]

Eh?!

Clients are not the same as shareholders and regulators.

Did you go to school?

you implied that clients report to/justify their decisions to their shareholders and regulators,

therefore, they choose accenture so they can blame big bad accenture when it goes wrong

i'm saying, it's because the shareholders and regulators are likely to have heard of/know about accenture but not about MrMarkyMarkLtd

[clearedforlanding]

Its not quite as simple as that .

CEOs are often golfing buddies.
Useful to have a big consultancy in to blame, when it all goes South. Shareholders and regulators can be told, well if the big guys, like Accenture, couldn't fix it, what hope did we have?
Useful to have a big consultancy in when it goes well, shareholders can be told that even though it was expensive, it provided real value.
Perception that the big consultancy support network will provide rich shared experiences and thus real value.
Lots of ex senior consultants on clients sites, networking with previous colleagues.

The perception of of the support network is the big one. Quick summary of my experience at consultancies: -

Wipro (Country Lead 3 countries): Big shouting match morning till night on a conference call. Major account didn't pay but Wipro have MHAs (Must Hold Accounts) and carry on doing work. Clients eventually would retain them for simple repetitive work, and even that they get wrong. Constant bullying by Indian "Managers".

Huawei (KAM): Whatever the customer requests say they Huawei have it, it will be coded quickly. All decisions taken at HQ, complete us and them culture. Highest churn and burn out of good skilled people I have seen anywhere. It appears no-one gets a good reference when leaving Huawei, seems to be a strategy of theres. I took my whole team with me when I left.

BT Exact (Distinguished Consultant): Mediocre pay, interesting work & development opportunities, excellent clients, some mind blowingly skilled colleagues and impossible to get fired. Seconded to Accenture for 6 months.

Accenture (Head of Strategy and Operations [for a continent]: Body shop. Was in a position where I could hire contractors I knew and trust to key positions, internal staff were diabolical. Partners have long term relationships with CEOs.

Sofrecom (Acting CIO): This was an eye opener. At beginning stunningly skilled staff, excellent rate, everything paid for (including a house with 14 chandeliers, and it's own private night club on the top floor) security guards, driver, car. When they heard that the government was not going to honour it's promises all the good staff below n-1 and some at n-1 were replaced with whatever dross they could dredge up from Orange. French politics (read sensitivities) can be tricky.

Common theme apart from Exact & Sofrecom - competing on price with clients.


I wouldn't touch FS with a bargepole at the moment. Am married to an IB CxO and I never see her. She is in the office all day or between LCY, JFK, ORD & HKG discussing staff cutbacks & fearing for her own job.

As for myself after 22 years as a free agent I have until next week to accept or decline a Permit role. I net 80% of my "usual" contract rate and will not have to spend my life in hotels and airplanes. Currently fielding some contract roles mostly out of nostalgia, but the reality is contracting is over and I will sadly miss it. If I compare hourly billing and weekly invoicing to monthly invoicing, the "PWD" and rates that are equal or lower than when I started it genuinely saddens me. If I think about the 1997 - 2001 period and wish I had put the money into property I burst into tears.

[MrMarkyMark]

i'm saying, it's because the shareholders and regulators are likely to have heard of/know about accenture but not about MrMarkyMarkLtd

You were saying something completely different, actually. You were saying they were engaged by clients becuse they have heard of them, I said it was not that simple and expanded the comment.

In reality you were commenting on something that you know absolutely nothing about.
You are fortunate, in the fact, that you work as an engineer, therefore you have no knowledge of working with the likes of Accenture.

It is not impossible to form small consultancies, you may be surprised there are some agencies that can help you create managed services.
I actually know, as I'm working on just that type of arrangement, now.

[pr1]

You were saying something completely different, actually. You were saying they were engaged by clients becuse they have heard of them, I said it was not that simple and expanded the comment.

In reality you were commenting on something that you know absolutely nothing about.
You are fortunate, in the fact, that you work as an engineer, therefore you have no knowledge of working with the likes of Accenture.

It is not impossible to form small consultancies, you may be surprised there are some agencies that can help you create managed services.
I actually know, as I'm working on just that type of arrangement, now.

i feel like you struggle to grasp the concept that time only ticks in one direction

while you are right, i haven't worked with accenture, i do work with the engineering equivalents (i.e. big consultancies seconding out staff onto projects). I didn't think we were talking about accenture and only accenture, but big consultancies in general, which follow the same patterns in engineering (i.e. let's get BigGuy in for twice the price of SmallGuy because 'they' designed XXX 30 years ago)

edit: however, i for one am getting bored of our little spats, i dread to imagine what anyone else who bothers to read thinks, so shall we just agree to ignore each other?

[MrMarkyMark]

i feel like you struggle to grasp the concept that time only ticks in one direction
edit: however, i for one am getting bored of our little spats, i dread to imagine what anyone else who bothers to read thinks, so shall we just agree to ignore each other?

You insult me, then, in the same breath, you are saying you are bored .

You seem to spend a lot of your time trolling, not just me, but others who have provided much more insight and contribution, than you ever could, to this board.

You also seem to approach everything in a immature and blinkered way, but I guess that is because you do not have much experience in the world, yet.

[northernladuk]

Hi Guys,

This is an interesting thread... to be or not to be a contractor, why art thou a contractor?

There are two sides of the camp, would be interested to see what others think:

+
+ Usual reasons, owning my destiny, seeing different clients, variety of work etc
+ Flexibility in general, including pay. Yes yes I know everyone will argue that we "just about scrape enough to live", but lets not kid ourselves, as a contractor (especially in FS) things are not so bad. Not getting paid much mroe than pre '08? Many permies are in the same boat
+ Continuous change by orgs and regs. Change is good, as it means (in general for some big orgs) a requirement for contractors or consultants to help to implement the change
+ Continuous Tech advancement changing process-people-tech org landscape. Same as above, cont and cons needed to help

-
- Dividend changes Apr '16
- Potential T&E expenses Apr '16
- Hundreds of thousands more permies taking Voluntary Redundancies, with a % joining contracting market
- At the same time, a feeling (from what I have read on various threads) that the market is shrinking a little bit
- Consultancies feeling the pinch and lowering their rates

Feel free to add to the above. There were a lot of "doom and gloom" threads on here, but looking at the above its not great, but maybe not as bad as some are making out?

You've completely forgotten to mention blanket IR35 in Apr '17 so yes it is as bad as people are making out. You pros and con's are a little imbalanced as well. If you put some weighting against each the picture would be very different. The Pro's you list tend to be lifestyle choices, the cons you list are about how it's harder to get work and get paid less for it. Contracting is a lifestyle choice only while you can find work. When there is a slow down and you are spending more than half a year on the bench the lifestyle element becomes slightly irrelevant. You have to pay the bills at the end of the day.

[northernladuk]

By which I guess you mean offshore providers the likes of Wipro, TCS, and onshore like Accenture?

Could we as contractors get together and form consultancy companies to compete with these guys? Would this work?

I need to sit down and work out why larger consultancies have an advantage over us now - which I have not yet done.

If you can't do this in your head while you were typing your response you are doing something wrong. For a start you are trying to compare apples with pears. I just hope you haven't spent more than 30 seconds since this post thinking about it.

[LondonManc]

the same reason your local coffee shop goes under 6 months after a starbucks opens down the road - because clients have heard of them

If a Starbucks opened down the road from a decent independent, I'd stick with the decent independent. Starbucks coffee is average at best. I'd heard of Ratners. I've heard of RyanAir, I'd heard of Enron. Just because you've heard of someone doesn't mean they're any good.

i feel like you struggle to grasp the concept that time only ticks in one direction

while you are right, i haven't worked with accenture, i do work with the engineering equivalents (i.e. big consultancies seconding out staff onto projects). I didn't think we were talking about accenture and only accenture, but big consultancies in general, which follow the same patterns in engineering (i.e. let's get BigGuy in for twice the price of SmallGuy because 'they' designed XXX 30 years ago)

edit: however, i for one am getting bored of our little spats, i dread to imagine what anyone else who bothers to read thinks, so shall we just agree to ignore each other?

I've work for a technical consulting company on a large project where Accenture were the business consulting partner. Complete culture clash.

The likes of MrMarkyMarkLtd and plenty other contractors get rehired based on a reputation of delivery. I'm back at the same client co I've worked for previous; my previous gig was for a hiring manager who I'd delivered for elsewhere. Track record of delivery, fraction of the price of Accenture and known person coming on board without any hard sell for extra days, which is what the body shops are all about.

If you want a large consultancy in, you have to absolutely nail the scope of what they should be delivering or you may as well set fire to a pile of 50 pound notes.