Watching the consultancy sector go through the dotcom era was one of the more entertaining experiences of my career. Pots of money were poured into start-ups and "incubators", selling everything from pet food to artists' supplies. Service offerings were rebranded at "e-speed" to remove any mention of non-internet related services, while everything else got its own little e-prefix. Young British Artists like Damien Hirst had their works ruthlessly plundered to produce suitably modern-looking websites (although sadly they went for his spot paintings rather than the--in retrospect more appropriate--rotting cow carcasses).

The climax came when "new economy" rising star USWeb/CKS found itself possessed of enough e-dollars to buy up the well-established strategy firm of Mitchell Madison (the partners later bought the name back from the receivers and started again).

In all of this hectic activity, the process of actually consulting to clients involved in the digital world somewhat fell by the wayside. The consequence is that, while the online world takes up more and more of our time and consumption, many of the experiences we have there are pretty sub-standard.

This was brought home to me when I visited the offices of Generator Consulting, one of the vanishingly few firms operating nowadays that is prepared to call itself a digital management consultancy. Their managing partner, Matthew Pitt, was demonstrating a neat little tool they have which records the actions and comments of a user as they navigate the site. In this case their own financial director was attempting to buy some laptops from a well-known on-line retailer. Having been through the same process myself a few days earlier, I was amazed to see my experience re-enacted, pretty much stumble-for-stumble and word-for-word (although their FD doesn't swear nearly as much as I do).

It raised an interesting question: why are so many websites - even from firms that are seen as successful online players - so terrible?

"We do a lot of work to help businesses make their existing websites work," says Pitt. "They appear to be usable, but from the end-user perspective they're useless - no-one's understood the requirements of the end-user."

This is where Pitt sees his market opportunity - there may be a lot of providers in the digital world, but when it comes to specific consultancy advice, there's not a lot to be had.

"Our USP is that there are a lot of people who can help you build stuff or sell systems, but very few who understand what digital is about from the customer perspective," he says. "We don't sell software, we don't design and build websites, we take the role of the expert advisor - and provide expert, impartial advice."

Generator has been around since 2001, operating as part of the i-level digital advertising agency. However in November 2005 it was spun out as an independent company.

The new company potentially faced a double handicap of being seen as either market researchers or web designers:

"It's potentially a very oversupplied market," says Pitt. "There are a lot of people out there who can help you decide who the customer is, for example. But a researcher can't help you with site design, or a web designer with customer research.

In order to make Generator's positioning clearer, both Pitt and his co-founder Jeremy Swinfen-Green joined the Institute of Management Consultancy and took the CMC (Certified Management Consultant) qualification. Generator is now an IMC-recognised practice and on the way to becoming a premier practice.

"We want people to know that they are working with a consultancy that is fit for purpose," explains Pitt. "It gives us credibility in terms of procurement, compared with the other agencies and consultancies on their books who don't subscribe to a code of practice and professional ethics."

Pitt believes that companies' continued lack of understanding of the principles of the online world is leading to massive shortfalls in potential online revenues there is a virtually open-ended market for Generator's services:

"Customer expectations are far greater than sites can deliver," he says. "It's an area where big business should learn from the smaller players. Their businesses do really adapt to changing conditions - they create very good customer experiences because they have to."

In all their assignments, Pitt says they focus not on making the website look good, but delivering measurable bottom line results.

"We have clients that have made their website their most profitable channel." It's an approach that has already won them projects and plaudits from the likes of the AA, Motley Fool and BSkyB.

With the papers warning that a renewal of dotcom fever may be around the corner, Generator Consulting's appearance is very timely.

"We've just launched a training company," says Pitt. "There's a massive demand for knowledge transfer. The dotcom bubble burst because of bad advice - what people want now is impartial advice."

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