Consultants and alliances: In whose best interest?Strong relationships with hardware, software, and services providers are important for consulting firms and for their clients. Through these relationships, consultants can provide access to deep expertise and product knowledge, specialized training, and customized support at a moment's notice. Like many consultants, West Monroe Partners has taken steps to establish alliance relationships with a select group of vendors -- using a disciplined approach to identify firms whose products and services meet our strict quality tests, such as top-quartile rankings by The Gartner Group, Forrester Research, and other third parties. In today's market, it is not uncommon that formal alliance relationships between consultants and product or service providers include some form of compensation that recognizes the consultant's application or referral of the vendor's offering as part of its work for clients. This compensation often takes the form of monetary incentives, but it also can be "paid" in the form of product licenses, consultant training, or other benefits. West Monroe Partners has taken a unique and definitive stand toward the practice of monetary compensation offered by alliance partners. Simply said: we do not accept it. We have carefully built West Monroe Partners upon several key principles, one of which is objectivity. We believe that to provide the right solution for a client's needs, we need to offer an unbiased viewpoint. That means coming to the table without any preconceived solutions, canned approaches, or products to sell. So while our alliances enable us to implement with expertise and efficiency, we put these relationships to work when it makes sense for the client and for no other reason. In those cases where an alliance partner's standard business practice is to offer compensation or referral fees, we apply the compensation in one of three ways: 1. As a pass-through credit or discount on professional fees paid by the client
2. Toward the purchase of licenses
3. Towards training of our consultants In instances where compensation from our alliances is not monetary but in the form of training, licenses, etc., we explicitly communicate this compensation to our clients. Alliances with high quality organizations are, without question, an important part of what we offer. But we want it to be perfectly clear that when we involve an alliance partner as part of a project, we are doing so because it benefits your business, not our bottom line. This policy is part of our commitment to creating a solution that is 100-percent aligned with your goals. For more information regarding West Monroe Partner's policy on alliances, please contact
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