Evinact CEO Neil Makepeace explains that consulting’s trust problem runs deeper than a handful of scandals, and what organisations should expect from an adviser with access to their inner workings.
When an organisation brings in a consultancy, it hands over more than a brief.
It gives the adviser access to sensitive information, senior people, internal problems and decisions that may shape the organisation for years. In government, those decisions can also affect taxpayers, communities and the delivery of essential services.
In commercial enterprises, they can affect customers, shareholders, employees and the future direction of the business.
That kind of access comes with an obligation. The adviser must act in the client’s interest, handle what it learns with care, and provide advice that is genuinely shaped by the client’s needs.
That sounds obvious. But in consulting, trust emerges from motivations, instincts and behaviours. It reflects the consulting firm’s belief system. Is the fundamental reason for our existence to maximise revenue or to create value? How far will we go to deliver a bigger profit margin?
The worldview of a truly great consulting business is built on profound integrity and an unrelenting focus on client impact.
Trust is not a slogan. Trust is the job.
The real issue isn’t scandal. It’s structure.
Recent public scrutiny of corporate consulting firms has focused attention on high-profile failures of trust.
One firm used confidential information from Treasury consultations, intelligence it was trusted with to help shape tax policy, to help its own multinational clients get ahead of the very measures being developed. Findings from parliamentary inquiries were rightly critical.
Another firm is now facing its own version of the story. A parliamentary committee has heard that confidential client information was shared with another part of the organisation that was pursuing Telstra’s audit work, and that material from Lendlease’s board papers was used in pitches for other major audit contracts. The inquiry also raised serious questions about how the firm treated the whistleblower who sounded the alarm.
Those examples are not the whole story.
The deeper issue is structural.
Many large consulting firms now operate across multiple service lines: advisory, audit, tax, technology delivery, managed services, implementation support and vendor-aligned offerings. Despite some safeguards, the existence of all of these services under the same roof has the potential to create serious conflicts of interest. It’s increasingly clear that such conflicts are commonplace and unavoidable where such diversified offerings are combined with partnership-type governance.
None of this has to be intentionally dishonest to be a problem.
The question a client should ask is not only: was this recommendation sound? It is also: was this recommendation shaped solely by our needs, or by the adviser’s broader commercial incentives?
This hits hardest in data, AI and digital work, where new products and platforms are being pitched at organisations every other week. The sales pitch is never in short supply, but independent judgement is.
Good advice starts with the client’s actual situation; their systems, their risk appetite, their capacity to absorb change. Not with what’s sitting in a partner’s sales pipeline.
Sometimes the right call is a major investment. But just as often, the smarter move is getting more out of what you already own. Maybe what’s needed is better governance, clearer decision rights, or fixing a basic data problem before you go anywhere near AI.
An adviser should be free to say so, even when saying so means selling less.
Scale doesn’t guarantee expertise
Sometimes it may be necessary to bring in the multinationals. Some problems require significant capacity, specialist depth, international expertise, or the ability to mobilise quickly.
But the ability to deploy scale shouldn’t be confused with the intent to safeguard the client’s interests or maximise their benefits.
A brand name isn’t the same thing as the people doing the work. A large project team isn’t automatically better than a small experienced one. A long report isn’t as useful as a good one.
This matters plenty in data, AI and digital strategy, where the quality of the work often depends on understanding how an organisation actually functions.
The further the work travels from the client, across teams, functions or geographies, the easier it is for important context to be lost. The further delivery moves from the people who shaped the original thinking, the greater the risk that the work becomes output rather than judgement.
So ask direct questions before you sign anything. Who is actually doing the work? Where are they based? What do they know about problems like yours? Which vendors does the firm have commercial ties to? How does the firm stand to benefit from its own advice?
A consultancy that takes independence seriously should be able to answer all of that without flinching.
Independence isn’t just a policy setting
Most firms will say they manage conflicts.
But independence isn’t only a policy setting. It’s a business model question.
If a firm’s commercial model depends on selling additional services after the advice is given, that shapes behaviour. If teams are rewarded for cross-selling, that shapes behaviour. If an adviser has vendor relationships that benefit from particular recommendations, that shapes behaviour. If senior people are heavily involved in winning the work but not delivering it, that shapes behaviour. And if senior people carry privileged knowledge into conversations with other customers who might benefit from it, unfortunately that shapes behaviour too.
Culture sits underneath all of this.
A firm can have the right policies but the wrong incentives. It can speak about client interest while rewarding revenue growth above all else. It can promote independence while quietly encouraging people to identify the next opportunity before the current problem has been properly solved.
That is why clients should look beyond declarations of trust.
They should consider how the adviser operates, and how its incentives work.
Trust is the job
Evinact was built around a simple idea: advice should be independent, practical and useful.
We focus on data, AI and digital, full stop. Our people work in this space every day; we’re not pulling generalists from a broader consulting pool and hoping their experience stretches to fit.
We only do advisory. We don’t audit our clients, sell software or take a cut from technology vendors.
So when we recommend a piece of technology, a governance model or a course of action, our fee doesn’t depend on which option you pick. If the right call is to slow down, cut scope or fix something basic before spending a cent on a new system, we’ll say so.
Our work is done in Australia by our own people. It isn’t handed off midway through or routed offshore once the pitch is won. The people whose experience got us the job are still in the room when the job gets done.
Plenty of conventional consulting engagements ask a client to commit to a large scope, a long timeline and a big bill before any value has been shown. That puts most of the risk on the client.
We prefer to earn trust in smaller steps, beginning with a clearly defined problem and a useful piece of work. Clients can see the quality of our thinking, how we work with their people and whether we deliver what we promised before deciding what happens next.
A good engagement should leave a client more capable. That might mean stronger governance, a roadmap people can actually follow or greater confidence using data and AI without us standing over their shoulder.
Sometimes that leads to a larger piece of work. Sometimes it means the client is equipped to move forward without us. Either way, trust grows when the advice holds up and the work delivers what it promised.
A consultancy can’t declare itself trustworthy and expect clients to take its word for it. Trust is earned through the choices a firm makes about how it operates, how it makes money and whose interests come first.
That’s not asking for much.
That’s just the job.
