(A) Existing relation with customer (including pre-negotiated MLA that legal signed off on, and ranch rates) & (B) safety of a big company (if project fails, legal can threaten and Accenture will throw bodies at it to mostly-finish).
Anyone who has never worked at a large enterprise probably doesn't understand how time consuming and annoying getting a new legal signoff can be.
I've worked at both consulting companies and customers hiring and using consultants.
When consulting is successful, it's usually because the client knows when they want built.
When consulting is a failure, it's usually because the client is too incompetent to even clearly identify their own needs.
And if the client, who by definition possesses the most detailed knowledge of the requirements, doesn't know what they need then the entire enterprise is doomed to failure.
> And if the client, who by definition possesses the most detailed knowledge of the requirements, doesn't know what they need then the entire enterprise is doomed to failure.
And the consultants get paid either way. I have done some real awful projects in my day, though the worst had to be a year-long product development effort as part of a JV. It became clear about 2 weeks in that the companies’ interest in the product were directly contradictory, and that the entire point of the JV was to get regulatory approval of a multi-billion dollar asset sale under the guise of a JV. The product development was just cover, and the client was all too happy to throw tens of millions of dollars at it to say “hey look, we tried to develop a product and it just didn’t work” since it was a fraction of a percent of the entire deal value.
Anyone who has never worked at a large enterprise probably doesn't understand how time consuming and annoying getting a new legal signoff can be.
I've worked at both consulting companies and customers hiring and using consultants.
When consulting is successful, it's usually because the client knows when they want built.
When consulting is a failure, it's usually because the client is too incompetent to even clearly identify their own needs.
And if the client, who by definition possesses the most detailed knowledge of the requirements, doesn't know what they need then the entire enterprise is doomed to failure.