Corporate culture is NOT as great as before: less people focus and more cut throat
Service Delivery department needs lots of improvements: Tend to under estimate the hours/costs to win business and work was not clearly scoped out. As a result, the consultants who are assigned to the project have to deliver the bad news to client that project needs time extension or more funding. There were lots of cases where consultants could not bill to the project to stay within budget and that meant they did not get the incentives for the work.
Management always tell the consultants to be transparent with the clients and to communicate bad news to clients while they don't practice what they preach. They don't always communicate with the staff what is going on especially during the recession when lots of layoffs or resignations are happening. Lots of times people find out other staff is no longer with the company months later.
Conflicting messages: Management always say that they are expecting lots of work in the coming months but we still see lots of people (managers, directors, consultants) being laid off.
Incentive program either has lots of errors or is impossible to calculate. And it is paid out 4 months later. Also there were cases where company gave clients extra discount by deducting the amount out of consultants' incentives (it was not the right thing to do)
Architect and PMO practices need alignment and need lots of improvements: Architect role is mainly to sell solutions at the lowest price possible as they have a quota to meet. They set the budget low so it is easier to get the contract and leave it to PMs to manage the budget. They do not understand what BAs or PCs or PMs so they end up underestimating their effort while giving themselves lots of hours to bill. Why would client believe the value in BAs or PMs when the company/account managers/architects see those consultants as overhead and don't understand what they do or either value??
Consultants who are full time at client site often feel disconnected with the head office
Business model is to focus on billable work. That means internal improvements/initiatives will get consultants who are on the bench. As soon as they get billable work, they are off those projects and new resources will be assigned. This means quality is not the best. Since internal projects are not billable, those consultants don't get incentives for contributing to the company. This is not right.
