28.03.2024
Midships: Our Distinctive Consulting Methodology

Ajit Gupta . 5 Minutes Read
Before the inception of Midships, I found myself deeply involved in challenging IT delivery programs, working withinin some of the most prominent consulting firms in the industry. Our clientele was diverse, spanning sectors such as the public domain, financial services, logistics, and utilities.
In each team that I became a part of, our relentless commitment often led us to conquer challenges that appeared insurmountable. Despite our successes, I consistently identified areas for improvement that were, at the time, outside my capacity to change.
The genesis of Midships has been fueled by a desire to transform the consulting landscape, to align it with my convictions regarding the execution of consulting services. Initially, the focus was not on scaling this concept, but as it turned out, our distinctive consulting methodology seems to be scalable (time will tell), though it has presented more challenges than usual.
Midships is unique – we are not just another name in the consulting industry, nor do we aspire to be. Say goodbye to the old way of doing things. Say hello to Midships.
My Vision / My Aspiration / My Organisation / My Strategy

Problem Solving, Not Selling – We immerse ourselves in comprehending the hurdles our clients face and showcase our solutions, allowing the inherent value we offer to do the talking.
Mutual High Value – As a consulting firm dedicated to delivering high value, our goal is to provide benefits not only for ourselves but for our clients as well. If they cannot recognize our value, it prompts us to reevaluate our role.
Empowerment Over Dependence – By imparting our knowledge and resources, we ensure that our clients are equipped to be independent after our engagement. Our partnership persists only if they perceive continuous value in our services.
Preparedness Over On-the-Job Learning – We invest in training as necessary, empowering our teams to operate more efficiently with smaller, more agile groups, and to deliver results promptly and most importantly avoid on the job learning.
Focus on Outcomes, Not Change Requests – Our commitment is to outcomes, not to change requests. We view challenges as opportunities to assist, not as pretexts for additional fees.
Attitude and Capability Over Tenure – Experience is invaluable, but the right attitude and capability are often the keys to success. We recruit based on these traits, with our senior team offering insights from their diverse experiences.
Ethics Before Profit – Our ethical principles guide our operations. We decline engagements that conflict with our values, a stance that has been tested and upheld even against proposals from major players.
No Debt or Short-Term Thinking – We grow steadily to avoid debt and foster a sustainable work environment.
Rewarding Integrity and Growth – We acknowledge that mistakes happen, but as long as they are not repeated and the intentions are sound, we support our team. This principle has been tested over the years, and I am proud to say that we have consistently acted in our team's best interest, despite external pressures.
Connecting Our Customers – We aim for our customers to trust the advice we provide. To achieve this, they need to connect with their peers and learn from them. We facilitate customer forums (where we are invited guests) to enable our customers to learn from one another.
Putting Our Principles into Practice

The past five years has been a steep learning curve and putting the vision into practice has been a challenge and has forced to dig deep and validate that our convictions are really more important than both money and prestige. In the process of upholding our convictions we have ruffled feathers with our partners, and this has not been easy.
This is where we are today:
Our hiring practices have evolved to recruit individuals who distinguish themselves by being multi skilled (see below), have an exceptional attitude, are eager to learn, deeply committed to our customers’ best interests and relish the challenge of overcoming obstacles.
In exchange, we try to be generous and considerate. As a result our attrition is exceptionally low. We offer a transparent work environment where their voice is heard, they have opportunities for growth at their pace, equal pay for equal roles (regardless of location), profit sharing, and more. This unique approach has consistently resulted in positive feedback from our clients about our team.
To maintain our focus on business outcomes, we prefer to undertake delivery on a Fixed Price basis. This approach allows us the flexibility to bring in the right people at the right time and to strengthen the team as needed. It also provides our customers with cost certainty. When determining the cost for fixed price, we provide a detailed breakdown of the anticipated SME effort required to deliver the scope and give our customers the opportunity to review and confirm that our expectations of effort are aligned.
We create accelerators to enable us to work more quickly, consistently, predictably, and reliably. While we are not a products company and have no desire to become one, our accelerators are frameworks that can be easily integrated into a customer’s environment to drive outcomes. These frameworks are continuously updated and enhanced as we learn more, allowing our newest customers to immediately benefit from the learnings we’ve gained from our previous customers.
What we don’t know, we learn and prepare in our own time. Our cloud bill is larger than I’d like, as I encourage my team to prove solutions prior to any engagement. This allows us to anticipate and inform customers of potential challenges and to acquire the necessary knowledge (or declare our gaps) before an engagement begins.
While it can sometimes be painful, we have open and honest conversations with our customers. We own our mistakes, regardless of how difficult it may be.
We connect and encourage our customers to connect with our SMEs—before, during, and after an engagement—to reach out if they need help. My team are passionate with what they do and is always happy to assist fellow engineers wherever possible. In fact, I can’t stop it even if I wanted to, so I don’t try.
We are selective about our customers and have been known to turn away opportunities where a customer cannot align with our values. Our customers have high expectations of us, and similarly, we have high expectations of them. Here are a few examples of what we expect:
- Customer SMEs integrated into the delivery team so we approach the delivery and associated challenges as partners to achieve an outcome, moving away from a ‘vendor’ and ‘customer’ mindset.
- Honesty, so we can lean in and prepare for challenges upfront. The earlier the challenges are known, the more we can do to mitigate them or align resourcing to address them efficiently.
If the values and approach of Midships resonate with you, please feel free to reach out to me at ajit@midships.io