Clients, big or small, are anxious to migrate to the Internet and hence they often outsource their services from multiple consultants, each acknowledged to possess core competencies in some key areas of e-business.

However, the effectiveness of the e-business consultants in the USA too, is often below par. Forrester Research found that because many Global 2000 and Internet companies are short on in-house talent, the market has, so far, forced them to pay a lot for a little. Forrester’s survey of 150-companies turned up some red flags: inconsistent performance, botched or incomplete jobs, and general confusion among clients looking for services. Forrester graded forty consulting companies on a scale of 10 (lowest) to 50 (highest). The rating was on areas such as strategy, technology and business practices. The top grade of 35-points—a paltry C—went to Cambridge, Mass, based Sapient. Sadly, only five other companies averaged a score in the thirties.

Firms are often biased and have strengths in strategy, systems integration or web design, based on the breeding and genealogy of the firm. Christine Spivey Overby of Forrester Research adds that the popular label "end-to-end provider" means vastly different things to different people. The result is that expectations are not clearly defined early enough and projects get axed midstream and given to a new vendor, often leaving a lot of clean-up work for the following firm.

V Sridhar is an associate professor and Ameya Kamat is an MBA student at IIM Lucknow