The merger of Virtrium into Chaucer Consulting was announced recently – an important milestone for both firms.
My story here begins in the summer of 2016 when the Directors of CIO Advisory firm Virtrium asked me to assist them with their forward growth strategy. Virtrium had a good brand in the market and a wealth of satisfied, long-term clients so I was happy to take a look. We spent time understanding why clients came to Virtrium and what they were asking Virtrium to help with, and gained a wealth of information.
From this, we honed propositions into three groupings that follow the life cycle of CIOs’ key investment programmes, namely IT Strategy, IT Architecture and IT Transformation – and with these being focused in on the Digital or Omni-Channel agenda that many IT functions are needing to supplement their own teams with external expert assistance. Altering Marketing messages and sales collateral to suit, the team was able to explain better the core focus of Virtrium and how it could assist its clients.
The results have been rewarding – a similar level of “point solution” assignments but, crucially, a much larger demand for Virtrium to assist its clients across complete programmes, taking lead roles in implementation phases.
Moving the clock forward two years to last summer, the Virtrium Board felt that it would be able to support its clients more easily if it had access to a larger team of programme and change management resource, and recruiting these was both taking an inordinate amount of effort and taking too long. Accordingly, we went out into the market to talk to other consulting firms that come from a programme, project and change management background.
In Chaucer, not only did we find the necessary capability but also a wealth of business consulting skills to sit alongside Virtrium’s IT strength. Also, Chaucer was already heavily involved in the implementation of Digital Transformation programmes without necessarily having been involved in the earlier strategic definition activity – Virtrium therefore provides the Chaucer team with additional much needed expertise in IT Strategy and Architecture. A true “win win” or “2 + 2 = 5+” scenario.
It’s only been a month, and with the Christmas break within this too, but client feedback has been excellent and supportive with some programmes involving one “heritage firm” or the other being extended to include the expanded capability.
I’m delighted to have been involved across the journey so far and look forward to witnessing the next chapter – the continued growth that the combined business will undoubtedly enjoy going forward.
See here for Virtrium’s press release.