When it’s time to renew a strategy, run an innovation lab, or move through a service design process, how do you pick a partner?
Working with your own team in-house is always a strong choice: You save money and resources, up-skill your current crew, and lean on institutional knowledge. Plenty of great resources exist on the web to help guide you (including here).
The downside is, as a leader, you’re often stuck as facilitator, which means you can’t contribute your own perspectives (or worse, can’t create trust and openness because the team can’t un-see you as The Boss). Not to mention: the reason you are getting stuck might be because you keep only hearing perspectives from inside the house!
So, fresh perspectives, neutrality and safety are some decent reasons to hire external support. If you’re going outside: big firm or boutique?
Hiring a big consultancy is often a go-to choice. Why and when would it make sense to go with a big firm?
- When you trust someone there: An existing relationship goes a long way, and if you’re already used to getting advice from a firm like this, it makes sense to go deeper.
- When you’re doing operational shifts: These groups often handle large-scale engagements well, especially when they are financial, regulatory or operational in nature.
- When you need the big name: Sometimes, the decision-makers need the assurance of a large, well-known brand, in order to feel good about the decision.
It’s worth being clear on what your needs are. An accounting firm’s core competencies, culture and traditions are deeply steeped in the disciplines of finance; innovation offerings are an “extra,” designed as a way to add value to their core services. Design isn’t the primary discipline.
Working with a boutique consultancy for innovation and design work usually means:
- Design and innovation is the main thing: You won’t find a boutique consultant “dabbling” in design while also selling accounting or legal support services. It’s a thoroughbred operation, designed for designing.
- You know who you are hiring: You can meet them, verify their expertise, and the work will not be passed along to someone else to execute.
- The cost is transparent, and sensitive to economic realities: Smaller consultancies are priced in a way to carry less overhead, and are more tuned into accessible budgeting.
- You can co-design the engagement: Rather than coming from a stock template, you can work with a boutique consultancy to co-create the way you want to work. You’re going to be deeply involved as a contributor and participant in a process like this. Make sure you find one where you, yourself, feel comfortable and at-ease in the partnership!
Of course, there are risks to going boutique as well:
- No back-up option: If you're unsure about the person who is working on your engagement, there is no swapping out for a different team member or partner. This is them.
- Availability challenges: If they’re booked, they’re booked. A small team can only take on so much work.
- Fewer “perks”: Bigger consultancies will buy you dinner, send you swag, and invite you to their next event. The boutique consultancy simply won't.
- Less infrastructure: A big firm will have robust IT policies, HR departments, legal teams, admin support, accounting; a boutique operation is likely having to manage much of that work in-house.
There’s one more question you need to ask: how important is location to you? Are large firms serving Kelowna and the Okanagan with innovation services? Or is staffing clustered at their physical real estate, in larger centres like Vancouver, Calgary or Edmonton?
Finding a partner in your community means the work is informed by the lived reality. If that’s in Kelowna or the Okanagan, it means you’re investing in community-betterment instead of sending jobs outside the region, or importing expertise that has been formed by assumptions that may be true in other markets (but not here). As well, a local consultant must live with the reputational outcome locally, rather than flying out after the engagement and never seeing anyone again. They have to live with the relationships.
If you’re wondering how to unstick the work of innovation and design in your organization, ask yourself what you really are prioritizing in this season. If you need:
- To build your internal capacity, and rely on existing institutional knowledge? Stay in-house.
- Support with large-scale implementations and financial/operational expertise? Choose a big firm.
- Focused expertise in design and innovation? Go boutique.
- Deep understanding of your particular community? Work with a local specialist.
What boutique design and innovation consultancies are working in Kelowna and the Okanagan?
Co.school is one of them. We work with organizations doing the work of strategy, collaborative design and innovation, primarily in the Okanagan, and across BC.
If you’re trying to figure out what kind of support you actually need, I’m happy to have that conversation. Even if the answer ends up being “You can totally do this one on your own.”