The claim
Every major systems integrator and management consultancy claims to be vendor-neutral. The pitch is the same: we evaluate all available options on your behalf and recommend the best fit for your specific requirements. We have no preferred vendor. We follow the evidence.
This is, in almost every case, not true. It is not that the individuals making the claim are dishonest. It is that the organisations they work for have structural incentives that make genuine vendor neutrality impossible.
The structural problem
The structural problem takes several forms. The most direct is the reseller margin: many systems integrators receive a percentage of the software licence value when they recommend and implement a specific vendor's product. A firm that receives 15% of a £5M SAP licence has a £750,000 incentive that is structurally in conflict with recommending a competing product, regardless of what the assessment says.
The second form is the preferred partner programme. Cloud hyperscalers, ERP vendors, and platform companies offer consulting firms preferential access to training, deal support, and co-selling resources in exchange for revenue commitments. A firm that has committed to selling £50M of AWS services in a fiscal year has a structural reason to recommend AWS even when Azure or GCP is a better fit for a specific client.
The third form is capability concentration. Firms build practices around specific technologies. When a firm has 200 SAP consultants and 10 Oracle consultants, the economic incentive is to recommend SAP — not because it is always the right answer, but because recommending Oracle creates a staffing problem and a margin problem.
The questions to ask
The questions to ask are direct. Does your firm receive any referral fees, reseller margins, or revenue shares from technology vendors? If yes, for which vendors, and in what amounts? Does your firm have revenue commitments to any technology vendor that could influence your recommendations? What percentage of your revenue comes from implementing the product you are recommending to us?
Most firms will not answer these questions directly. The evasion is itself informative. A firm with genuinely no financial relationship with the vendors it recommends can answer these questions without hesitation.
A second set of questions focuses on the assessment process. Can you show us assessments where you recommended against the product the client was expecting to implement? Can you show us assessments where you recommended a vendor you have no partnership with? Can you name the last three engagements where your recommendation was to not implement a new system at all?
What genuine neutrality looks like
Genuine neutrality looks like this: the advisory engagement is priced independently of the implementation. The advisors who run the assessment have no financial stake in the outcome. The assessment methodology is documented and shared with the client. The shortlist includes vendors the firm does not implement. The recommendation includes a clear-eyed view of the scenarios where the recommended option is not the right choice.
It also looks like a willingness to tell clients things they do not want to hear. The most useful advice we have given clients has included: the ERP system you are planning to implement is not the right fit for your business model; the cloud migration you are planning will cost three times more than your business case; the digital transformation programme you are about to start does not have the organisational sponsorship it needs to succeed.
None of those recommendations generated implementation revenue. That is what vendor-neutral advice actually means.