Loyalty: It’s a Messi business.

If Lionel Messi decided to switch teams, many an English football fan’s phoney allegiance to Barcelona would soon evaporate – mine included.

The question of loyalty to a club, even as respected an empire as Barcelona, the crème de la crème of the professional game, is a secondary thought for many casual observers and sport enthusiasts. What does appeal is the dazzling brilliance of its star players and the unparalleled skills they bring to the sport. This got me thinking about the comparison between top-flight football, and the consulting world of today, especially where the ‘indirect’ client or, in football terms, the ‘un-indoctrinated fan’ is concerned. A client who hasn’t worked with a consulting firm directly will base their opinion of a firm on a variety of factors such as brand, personal recommendations etc. But if a star individual they see on a project grabs their attention, the firm they represent might be irrelevant.

So what does this mean for all the consulting firms battling to find a distinctive edge? Are they fighting a losing battle when the most important ingredient on which perceptions of their firm are built – people – is in a constant state of flux? And does this mean that any summation of clients’ views about things like quality and value can’t be attempted without a footnote that says ‘this could completely change, depending on who you talk to’?

There is certainly a lot more going on in clients’ minds than my star player analogy gives them credit for, though making sense of it isn’t always easy: we find that the relationship between perceptions of things like quality, value and price rarely follows the formula you’d expect. It’s a challenge to which we’ve attempted to rise in publishing a new suite of Brand Perception Summaries, which look at each of the world’s leading consulting firms. In turn they reveal not only how well recognised a brand is, but what it’s known for and which other firms it competes with for the attention of its clients and prospects.

All of which is valuable information.  But no matter how clever we get at analysing data about clients’ perceptions of consulting firms, there’s no telling what the impact will be of those firms star players: its people. After all, both clients and fans alike, at any end of the spectrum, can be a fickle bunch. Even if you have proved yourself for years and delivered value for money, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you’ll be a permanent fixture. Just ask Arsene Wenger.