The bulk of consulting firms in the business performance management space are implementation firms. They typically partner with one or two of the key vendors and implement their products almost exclusively. This is where they make the bulk of their revenue. However, greed often gets the best of them and if they can make money helping a client select the product to be implemented they will do that as well. How can they objectively help a client find the 'best' product if they have a vested interest in seeing them go with one of the products they implement? Not to mention that many partnerships with the vendors also include a finder's fee for sending business their way, further steering these firms towards recommending their partner's products. The vendors know this of course and when an innocent prospect asks for help in identifying a consulting firm to guide them through vendor selection, who do you think the vendors suggest? One of their most loyal partners of course. It's all rather incestuous if you ask me, and terribly unfair to the prospect who is spending money on a consultant who's going to probably direct him to the solution that's best for the consulting firm, not necessarily the prospect.

How do theses consultants convince smart companies to engage them? One simple word: unified. The question they'll pose is: 'do you want to have work with two different consulting companies - one for selection, one for implementation'? Sounds logical. However, if you don't yet know which product you are going to ultimately select how do you know which implementation firm to hire? To say it another way, if the implementation firm is truly unbiased they may very well help you select a product they don't implement. In that case you are back to having to work with two consulting firms, and you have done your selection work with a firm that may not be as expert as someone that does selection for a living. If they steer you to a product they do implement you have the benefit of a single company for selection and implementation, but most importantly do you know if they really helped you find the best solution for your business?