The old saying has it that the cobbler’s children are always the worst shod so perhaps we should not be surprised that management consultancy, a profession which analyses the problems of others and how to solve them, has been desperately slow at putting itself and its own problems under the spotlight.

Several things flow from this. Only actuaries have more disparaging jokes told about them, which suggests first that the industry has an image problem and, second, that no one is quite sure what it does.

Everyone can see the costs but are less certain about the benefits.

Hence the bad joke that a consultant is someone who borrows your watch to tell you the time; or that the central purpose of any bit of consultancy is to sell a client the next bit of consultancy.

And while we are on the subject I did once meet a consultant whose pitch was that he was better equipped than the client to judge the quality of work of consultants so he should be employed to do that.

Now in good times none of this matters very much because there is enough money sloshing around for businesses not to penny-pinch and for consultants to make a good living.

In recession it gets tougher because consultancy is one of the easiest things to cut, particularly if what it contributes is unclear.

Mindful of this, the Management Consultancy Association, reinvigorated since Alan Leaman arrived as chief executive from the Association of British Insurers, decided to bite the bullet and commission Tim Morris, Professor of Management Studies at Oxford, to conduct a study of consultants’ value.

The results were startling: some 58% of clients said they were satisfied with the work consultants did and estimated that their work was worth between two and 20 times as much as it cost. Most settled on between eight and 12 times.

Averaging this out and taking into account other projects where the value is equivalent to the price — presumably the less-satisfied customers — then the MCA reckons that the benefits provided by clients are around £6 for every £1 spent. This comes out at an impressive £56 billion.

Perhaps it’s time to kill the jokes.

Repost from:  http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/markets/article-23813774-consultants-really-do-add-value.do

The energy-water nexus

Matt Simmons, energy investment banker and author of a leading peak oil book, gave a speech in Dubai last month about the role of water in energy. Oil is priceless, Simmons said, but water is even more valuable since:

– Without water, we cannot create modern energy
– Without water, we have no food

It is similar to oil in that we will never run out of it, but good (sweet light, in the case of oil, or potable in the case of water) supplies are becoming scarce.

The problem is, as both supplies become more scarce, both are demanded more by the other – and of course, by the world’s growing population. Available water, says Simmons, is increasingly brackish or saline, which is energy-intensive to convert to drinkable water.

And energy – particularly some newer sources, such as solar thermal and shale gas, are extremely water-intensive:

Simmons is not alone in this view. At the CERA Week conference under way in Houston, the water problem was addressed in a panel on Wednesday. From the Houston Chronicle’s report, it sounds as if the most concerned of the industry representatives present was one Arnold Smith of Fluor Corp, an engineering and construction management firm:

“Water is directly tied to energy use,” Fluor Corp.’s Arnold Smith said. “Twenty years ago it was almost an afterthought to presume where water would be coming from. Now it’s at the top of the list.”

Scott Weaver of the American Electric Power Company meanwhile  “said that the current administration is focusing on environmental issues and water use is being controlled by a number of regulators”.

The panel’s conclusion?

All the speakers agreed that there are opportunities to get around the water problem, like looking at heat recovery as power to minimize water consumption. The biggest tool would be to increase efficiency, not just on the part of the energy industry, but also efficiency in how everyone uses water.

Simmons, however, sees a very specific light on the horizon in the grim picture he paints of our current oil and water predicament; that is marine energy. New breakthroughs in offshore wind technology from the University of Maine, he says, could make it a competitive energy source even without subsidies and a source of filtered water. Other ways of tapping energy from the ocean itself have barely begun. The huge power of the sea, he argues, makes it equivalent to the offshore gas and oil industry of 80 years ago.

Source: FT http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/2010/03/11/the-water-energy-nexus/#more-49491

The University of Exeter is one of a consortium’s members providing wave prediction technology.

A consortium of companies has been given €4.5 million funding from the European Commission to deploy a wave energy device and associated wave prediction and tuning technology.

Ocean Power Technology’s PowerBuoy is likely to be deployed in Santoña, Spain.

Around half the money will go to OPT, with the remaining funds used by the other five consortium members for the steel fabrication, wave-monitoring equipment, wave resource prediction research, system monitoring and project management.

Source: Utility Week

Southern Water has announced plans to start charging its customers more in the summer than in the winter.

The aim of the so-called ’seasonal tariff’ is to preserve water supplies in the dry summer months reports BBC News Online.

From June customers in Hampshire, parts of West Sussex and Medway in Kent will have new meters installed.

They will pay 6% more than the standard rate for their water in June to September, and 2% less than the standard rate the rest of the year.

Southern Water says most people will end up paying about the same amount over the whole year.

Environmental benefit

The company says it will install 487,000 meters in the next five years, meaning 93% of its customers will have a meter by 2015.

It says metering is a fairer system as customers will only pay for what they use and are in control of their water use and bills.

There have been some small-scale trials before, and some water companies, including Severn Trent, Veolia Water East and South East Water, have seasonal tariffs for business customers.

But Southern Water, which supplies water to Sussex, Kent, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, is the first company to roll out a scheme to nearly half a million people.

Seasonal tariffs are supported by the Environment Agency, which says water use by individuals in the South East needs to fall from 156 litres of water per day to 130 litres by 2030.

It says that is because forecasts suggest flows in some rivers could fall by 35% by 2050, as abstraction increases due to population growth and climate change impacts.

But research carried out by the Consumer Council for Water in 2007 found only 27% of people liked the idea.

The first phase of Swindon’s free public wireless internet has been switched on in the north of the town.

Swindon Borough Council plans for all 186,000 citizens to have blanket “wi-fi mesh” coverage by April 2010, says BBC News Online.

• The equipment, mounted on 21 lampposts in the Highworth area, will allow people to connect to the internet via laptops or portable devices.
• Wireless internet allows computer users to access the internet without the need for wired connection to phone lines
• Under the scheme basic line rental will be free and there will be no connection charge, say council officials.
• The £1m project will be run by Digital City UK Ltd, in which Swindon Borough Council has a 35% share.
• Digital City chief executive Rikki Hunt said: ” People have done free wi-fi before, it happened in Norwich in 2006 as a test period. What we’re doing is covering the whole borough, that’s what unique, so it’s not just free access in your home, you can actually move around the borough and still be connected.”
• Some 1,400 secure access points are to be fitted around Swindon, similar to those used in homes but with a much higher performance, it is claimed.
• If successful, there is an intention of working on similar roll-outs of the technology in other towns and cities across the UK.
• The service will also have the potential to provide free internet phone-calls and remote medical consultations.
• Other UK cities have had trials of the schemes, but this is the first time an entire town area will be covered by council-backed public wi-fi.