Legate vs. traditional solutions

Legate next to the usual ways of buying consulting

A traditional firm sells one product: a staffed project. An open marketplace sells you a list and leaves the screening to you. Legate matches your problem to the format that solves it, from one specialist to a boutique firm, and shows the full price before you sign. This page sets them next to each other, including the cases where a firm is the better buy.

The two models

What you are buying in each case

Buy from a traditional firm and you buy a project. A partner scopes it, the firm staffs it as a pyramid, and the fee covers everyone on that pyramid along with the offices behind them. The shape is set before anyone has tested what the problem needs.

Buy through Legate and you buy the work. We sharpen the problem with you first, then propose the format that solves it: one specialist for a defined piece of work, a compact team of independents, a boutique firm under one roof, or a senior advisor by the hour. You see the consultant's rate and our fee before you sign, and the Legate team runs the kick-off and stays until the engagement closes.

Both models put senior people in front of you. They differ in what surrounds those people, and in how much of your fee goes to that.

Side by side

What differs, line by line

What differsA traditional firmLegate

What you buyA traditional firmA staffed project, scoped by a partner and sized before the work starts.LegateThe format the problem needs: one specialist, a compact team, a boutique firm, or a combination pitching together.

Who does the workA traditional firmA pyramid. The partner you met sells it, and a team you have not met delivers much of it.LegateThe people on your shortlist, and nobody you did not pick.

Where scoping startsA traditional firmAt the brief you wrote.LegateBefore it. We work through the outcome, what falls outside it, your budget and what your own team covers.

Time to startA traditional firmWeeks of proposals, then procurement.LegateA vetted shortlist within two business days, and a signed contract within two weeks of your choice.

First commitmentA traditional firmThe full programme, sized and signed up front.LegateA first slice of two to four weeks, with the conditions to continue or stop written down.

PriceA traditional firmOne lump sum. Procurement asks what it covers and there is no breakdown to hand them.LegateThe consultant's rate and our fee, both on the page before you sign.

The fee on a bigger teamA traditional firmRises with every person added to the proposal.LegateStays the same on a team of one or six.

As the work progressesA traditional firmThe team keeps the size of the proposal, or grows.LegateThe plan names when your people take over, and our consultants step back as they do.

If the fit is wrongA traditional firmHandled case by case, through the partner.LegateReplaced inside the first four weeks, with our fee for that period returned.

Best forA traditional firmLarge mobilisations across several countries at once, and work where the name on the cover carries weight.LegateA defined problem where you want the right person more than the biggest team.

Where it fits

Where Legate is the better buy

Legate fits when you can name what has to happen. You want someone senior who has done it before, you want them starting this month, and you do not need thirty people to get there.

An interim finance lead through a carve-out
A PMO for one phase of a post-merger integration
A due-diligence read before you commit to a deal
Two weeks of senior challenge on a market-entry question
A four-week proof on one workflow before you commit to an AI programme

In each of those you are buying a person or a small team, and you can say what you want back from them.

Where a traditional firm still makes sense

You need forty people in five countries on the same Monday. A firm has that bench standing. We would be assembling one, and assembling costs you the weeks you were trying to save.

The board or the regulator wants a recognised name on the cover. That name is part of what you are buying, and we cannot sell it to you.

The programme runs for two years and changes shape as it goes. A firm carries that continuity inside its own staffing, where a network is stronger on work you can define.

Bring us the question anyway. When a firm is the right buy we say so, and we would rather say it now than three weeks in.

A second opinion

Holding a firm's proposal already?

Send it to us with the brief behind it, and we tell you where the shape fits the problem and where it does not. The five questions we put to every proposal sit on the page for companies, so you can try them on it first.

See the five questions

A choice you can defend without a famous name

Part of a large firm's fee buys cover. If the work fails, the buyer points at the name on the proposal and the conversation ends there.

Through Legate you get cover of another kind, and you keep it on file: the written brief with its boundary, the reasoning behind each candidate on the shortlist, the references we checked by hand, and the price line by line. Hand that file to a board, an auditor or procurement, and each of them can follow how you decided.

Your board sees the reasons for the choice, in writing, before the work starts.

An open marketplace is only as good as its vetting

Open marketplaces list whoever signs up. You get a long result set, profiles nobody checked, and the screening work lands on you. If you pick wrong, the platform carries none of that.

We admit people one at a time. The Legate team interviews each of them, verifies the references by hand, and checks registration and insurance. Our team validates every shortlist before it reaches you, with the reasoning per candidate written down. When the fit turns out wrong in the first four weeks, we replace the person or team and give up our fee for that period.

Our own fee sits behind the match, which is what keeps the shortlist short.

Questions

Frequently asked

: The work, in the shape the problem needs. We sharpen the brief with you first, then propose one specialist, a compact team of independents, a boutique firm under one roof, or a senior advisor by the hour. You see the consultant's rate and our fee before you sign, and the Legate team runs the kick-off and stays on the engagement until it closes.
: Per day, for the same seniority, yes. You pay the consultant's rate plus our fee, and our fee sits below what traditional intermediaries charge. It also stays the same when the team grows, where a firm's fee rises with each person on the proposal. The larger saving is often the format rather than the rate: a question a firm would staff as a multi-week project can turn out to need one person for part of it.
: The people come from the same places. Consultants on Legate trained at leading strategy houses, technology firms and large consulting firms and now work without the machinery around them. What changes is who shows up: you get the senior person you picked, not a pyramid with that person's name at the top of it.
: No. Legate covers management, technology and AI consulting. Next to strategy questions that means interim leadership, programme and project management, finance and operations, change, due-diligence support, system choices and AI implementation. The format follows the problem, so the same account can send you one advisor this quarter and a boutique firm the next.
: When you need a large team in several countries at the same time, when a recognised name on the cover is part of what the work has to carry, or when a programme runs for years and keeps changing shape. Ask us anyway. If that is your case we will tell you.
: A vetted shortlist reaches you within two business days of the scoping conversation. From your choice to a signed contract takes under two weeks on our templated agreements, or longer when you run it through your own procurement.
: We write engagements as outcome-based statements of work and screen risky constructions before contracting. When an independent setup would not hold, we deliver the same work through a firm on the network instead.