The consulting industry has a delivery problem. Recommendations without implementation responsibility produce slide decks, not outcomes.
The consulting industry has a delivery problem. Recommendations without implementation responsibility produce slide decks, not outcomes. This is not a new observation — it's been made by every thoughtful critic of management consulting for fifty years. What is less often acknowledged is why the pattern persists.
It persists because advisory is easier to sell. It has lower risk (for the consultant), faster delivery, and a compelling output. The client receives a strategy document. The consultant receives a fee. Whether the strategy is implemented — and whether it works — is someone else's problem.
Embedded execution models are different in a specific way: accountability transfers. When the consultant is inside the organisation, making decisions, managing workstreams, and owning outcomes — the incentive structure changes. The quality of the recommendation is tested immediately. Bad advice is visible in days, not months.
We have run both models at Meridian. The difference in outcome is stark. Not because the advisory model produces worse analysis — often the analysis is identical. But because implementation is where the real complexity lives: the stakeholder who won't engage, the system that doesn't behave as specified, the team that needs different training than expected.
The question we ask prospective clients is: who is going to own the implementation? If the answer is 'we'll figure it out after the strategy is done', the risk of non-delivery is high. If the answer is 'that's actually the hard part and we need help with it', we're having the right conversation.