Since its inception, Escient has quickly grown into one of the most trusted names in professional consulting services in Australia with 110 employees and 80 clients across four states.

Established in Adelaide in 2016 by Stephen Mabbs, Tin Tran and Thomas Stianos, the founders recognised an opportunity to bring something unique to the market by breaking away from traditional consulting models. These models tend to be transactional and activity-oriented, with some firms opting to provide clients with a one-size-fits-all approach to delivering value, often with mixed results, suboptimal outcomes and underwhelming client satisfaction. Steve, Tin, and Tom believed there was a better way.

Escient was created because its founders believed providing a values-based, tailored approach would result in greater client success and greater satisfaction not only for clients but for Escient and its employees. Escient is positioned to build deep partnerships with clients, providing evolved thought leadership that delivers high value outcomes (see below diagram). Escient’s comparative positioning to competing consultancies, agencies and contractors highlights the company’s focus on embracing a client’s business complexities in order to add real and unique value.

A major key to the organisation’s success is attributed to its diversity – the company prides itself on being gender-balanced with multi-generational representation, where over half the team was born overseas and whose professional backgrounds span over 20 professional disciplines. Escient believes its multitude of experience and diverse cultural perspectives give its consultants better insights that inspire creativity and help drive innovation, in addition to helping build trusting relationships with clients, delivering them purpose-fit value with real, sustainable outcomes.

Another key success factor is alignment. Through innovative commercial arrangements and a share scheme, Escient has ensured that clients, the company and employees all win together. The company has developed and evolved an Employee Value Proposition that it has recently started benchmarking its performance against via staff surveys and other forms of feedback.

Finally, Escient is committed wholeheartedly to always acting with trust and transparency in mind. Company results and growth plans are shared regularly with the entire team. Through a Client Advisory Board, Escient holds itself accountable to strategic clients who gain insight into all aspects of company performance and have a say in the company’s strategic direction.

Consultants currently provide an array of professional services in both advisory and delivery capacities, predominantly delivered through onsite client engagements, specialising in disciplines such as Strategic Advice, Program and Project Management, Business Analysis, and Change Management, across a broad base of skills and expertise including: Digital Strategy, Business Services, Analytics & Modelling, Implementation and Customer Centricity.