Just Consulting?

By a large margin, the most prominent question Nathan, Taylor and I have been asked since we started conceptualizing Rope Access Management, LLC has been, “why are you just consulting?”

Even the folks that haven’t asked the question, have listened to our idea and followed up with responses generally along the lines of, “Well… best of luck!” Growing up in Texas and currently living in the Southeast gives me a heightened ability to recognize “bless your heart” statements, and no matter how well intentioned the respondents are, that is essentially their reactions.

Fortunately for the three of us, we have all developed relatively thick skin in the face of well-intended skepticism. After all, the first decade of our careers was spent convincing oil companies that it’s often safer to work from ropes than scaffolding or cranes.

Thick skin aside, one cannot simply ignore this kind of feedback, especially when delivered by peers.

I recently had a discussion with one of my most trusted mentors in the industry, Iain Gault. For decades now he has run a consulting business alongside full-time employment as a program manager/technical authority for larger industrial services firms.

We primarily discussed the fact that rope access consulting has not really caught on in the North American industrial market yet. We didn’t have the time to really dive in to why we thought this is the case. The conversation did confirm the challenge exists though, which has its own value.

There are several factors that have deterred a consulting focus amongst rope access companies in North America, but I believe simplest explanation is that the market just hasn’t presented an opportunity for it until now.

At the very beginning of the rope access industry in North America, limiting the scope of a business to rope access consultation just wouldn’t have been viable. The commercial viability of rope access itself was still in question, and so consultation was offered as a form of lead generation to gain adoption in curious customers. The business landscape was largely non-competitive, with each of the rope access businesses occupying their own niche to enjoy the high margin, low utilization environment.

As adoption began to increase, the opportunity costs of limiting a rope access company’s scope to consultation would have been too high to have been considered. Where the earliest stages of the rope access industry had the innovating companies focusing solely on lead generation in search of their earliest adopting customers, this next stage forced these original companies to shift focus away from sales and onto scaling challenges. The companies with the best staffing strategies won this stage of development. The environment was high margin and high utilization, which encouraged competing rope access service companies to emerge. The fact that the original rope access companies often had to focus almost singularly on their champion clients made this stage of the rope access industry ripe with opportunity.

The clearest sign that rope access had begun to cross over the adoption chasm came in the wave of acquisitions that occurred about 14 to 10 years ago. Essentially, all the original rope access businesses that played the roles of the innovators were acquired by larger industrial services firms that saw the value gained by blending rope access capabilities with their existing service lines. The remaining pragmatic industrial service companies that wanted to add rope access capabilities before the peak of the adoption bell curve would end up seeking out capable management teams to build their rope access programs internally. At this stage, the deals available to these management teams were still too lucrative to support a consultation focus for an independent business. However, prominent rope access managers that were unhappy with their current circumstances post-acquisition would often signal their availability to larger firms by stating a desire to shift into consulting.  This likely led to the general distrust and skepticism that rope access consultation garnered in industry over the years.

The moment where the adoption of any technology passes the crest of the bell curve is likely imperceptible at the time and only visible in hindsight. In this way, rope access appears to be no different. The trend of developing rope access capabilities within larger industrial services firms would continue, however, there were a few spectral changes that can indicate the later stages of the adoption bell curve. These changes can most accurately be described as the slow transition from rope access as a specialized craft towards rope access as the commoditized means of accessing a work location that it’s becoming.

Where the earlier adopting industrial service firms heavily invested in the acquisitions of businesses or high performing management teams, the later adopting industrial service companies would add rope access as an afterthought, often to fill the demands of their existing clientele. The role of the rope access program manager once reported to the top of a company’s org chart, and now commonly is housed somewhere beneath a regional operations manager and typically only resembles a coordinator position at best. In many cases, the role of the rope access manager doesn’t exist at all.

To an extent, its understandable. As adoption increased, so did utilization, and margins corrected over time. All businesses are forced to reduce overhead costs for the sake of efficiency, and the businesses that were later to the adoption curve of rope access likely never enjoyed the higher margin honeymoon that the earlier adopters experienced. That these later adopting industrial service firms added rope access in response to their existing customer demand also likely eliminates technical sales and business development responsibilities that often landed under the rope access manager’s purview.

It’s also likely that increased adoption has decreased the perceived risks associated with rope access.

On this last note, while it has been our life’s work to convince North American industry that rope access is statistically safer than walking, it is important to note that the historical data used to justify that position was created under a very stringent safety management system as laid out by the Industrial Rope Access Trade Association, and to a lesser degree, the Society of Professional Rope Access Technicians. Rope access will only maintain this exceptional safety record so long as it continues to be managed as an entire safe system of work.

At Rope Access Consultants, LLC, we understand that the competitive landscape for rope access will continue to change, and that the needs of each company will vary dramatically.

For industrial service firms that only receive sporadic requests to perform rope access, there’s likely not enough revenue to justify the investment in a full-time rope access manager. We would still like these companies to get off to the right start and have access to senior leadership to help guide their development.

Some rope access companies may be entering a significant growth stage and could benefit from bringing in a compliance and implementation team to assist their full-time managers through a challenging period. That is exactly within our wheelhouse, and we are happy to help.

Oil and gas companies, prime contractors, and facility owners will likely find that having their own written program and a client representation team to qualify and monitor their contractors can only benefit them.

Private equity firms and special purpose acquisition companies targeting industrial services may appreciate having their own team of experts to represent their interests through acquisitions and mergers.

To answer the original question, we are just consulting because we feel that just consulting is the best way we can make the largest positive impact and serve the industry that has provided so much for us. That a consulting focused rope access business hasn’t caught on yet only shows us that we are likely ahead of the adoption bell curve, again.