Iceland supermarket mocks management consultants on its website

Key facts

• Iceland supermarket published a satirical cartoon on its website mocking management consultants.
• The cartoon criticizes "upper management" and consultants for restructuring, staff redundancies, and executive bonuses.
• The company spent £16m on external consultancy firms, including PwC, during the early 2000s.
• Iceland referred to this period of external consultancy as 'The Dark Ages'.
• A spokesperson for Iceland stated that the period with external consultants 'went terribly wrong'.

Budget supermarket chain Iceland has shared a satirical dig at management consultants on its website, referencing a period in the early 2000s when the company spent £16m on external consultancy firms, including Big Four giant PwC. The retailer, known for selling frozen food, published a cartoon-style pitch deck titled ‘Beware Management Consultants’, depicting a losing rowing team dragged down by consultant-appointed managers.

The drawing criticizes "upper management" as "sharks getting the scent of reorganisation blood, wasting no time in restructuring." It also calls out the appointed "panel of auditors" and their restructuring efforts, which it says included making staff redundant, paying directors and managers bonuses, and outsourcing services "to India."

The frozen food retailer refers to this era as ‘The Dark Ages’, a term first coined by its founder Malcolm Walker. In 2006, Walker criticized his predecessors, former chief executive William Grimsey and chief financial officer William Hoskins, known as “the two Bills,” for failing to turn the company around. Grimsey and Hoskins had taken control after Walker was forced out following insider trading allegations and an investigation in 2000.

A spokesperson for Iceland told City AM that the period where external consultants were hired "went terribly wrong" as they attempted to remodel the business as a convenience store. The spokesperson emphasized that Iceland "is a very straight talking supermarket" and the business "has no time for CEOs and leaders that haven’t got a real strategy."

Company’s House filings from 2003 show that during the financial year when the supermarket was renamed The Big Food Group after merging with Booker, its committee received external advice from PwC and New Bridge Street Consultants. In January 2003, New Bridge Street Consultants was appointed as the primary external adviser on remuneration matters, though advice from other advisers on specific projects was still possible.