I have a similar story, many years ago I worked in Brazil as an "IBM consulting partner". Meaning my company implemented IBM solutions on clients, but as a separate company from IBM. Usually as a more of a budget option to IBM internal consulting work.

(I didn't actually work with IBM stuff, I did development of our internal product that we sold in conjunction to IBM solutions to our clients)

I went to their office in São Paulo once and it was the most surreal office experience I ever had. The lobby was all promo stuff and self-aggrandizing marketing. Then after some walking came auditoriums full of people on laptops, not rooms, auditoriums. 200 people-big rooms (although they seem only 70% full) with maybe 30cm between each seat on all sides. I thought at the time that I would rather die than have to work in one of those rooms every day. The building is actually quite cool looking (from the outside):

https://arquivo.arq.br/projetos/edificio-sede-da-ibm

Then they took us upstairs where it looked like a concrete maze full of meeting rooms without windows. The discussions were not very fruitful.

My manager told me once that IBM consulting was considerably worse than most of their certified partners (even though they were implementing IBM own products) because they rely on the brand name. They pay slightly more than the partner does for their employees but they treat them like crap.

From that experience I understood how this world of consulting/client-interaction works. Unlike software, consulting scales linearly. So the companies want to squeeze as much as they can from these labor-linear income flows. So it is usually not the best people doing that kind of work.

These companies much rather you buy their solutions and do it yourself, the consulting is just a growth strategy for the product. That is why the external partners were better with the tools than the people inside the company.

Damn, that was just sad to read. Thank you for sharing.