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A market in transition: consulting in the GCC

By ⋅ 1 May 2012 ⋅ Post a comment

Demand for consulting in the countries of the Gulf Co-Operation Council (GCC) has been growing fast since the recession, but for most consulting firms in the region this hasn’t meant a return to business as usual. That’s been confirmed by our recent round of client research, this time focusing exclusively on the views of almost 150 [...]

Lean marketing

By ⋅ 20 April 2012 ⋅ Post a comment

Back in 1998, whilst working for the now ailing Japanese electronics giant Sony (whose ailing, I should point out, has nothing to do with my having worked there and everything to do with my having left), I applied for a sales position. Asked to make a presentation to my erstwhile colleagues I duly delivered what I considered to [...]

Changing minds

By ⋅ 11 April 2012 ⋅ Post a comment

Joe (let’s call him) is good at making presentations.  A highly-experienced consultant, he’s knows how to project his voice, read his audience, put just the right amount of content on his slides and not fiddle with the loose change in his pockets while he talks. People are nice enough to say that he says interesting [...]

HR directors’ views on consulting

By ⋅ 19 March 2012 ⋅ One comment

Around a quarter of the 400+ clients we questioned recently were HR directors; most were significant buyers of consulting services.  The striking thing about talking to so many of them is how rarely they voluntarily talk about the big HR consulting firms, even though many use their services. This paradox appears to stem from the [...]

Breaking the mould in manufacturing consulting

By ⋅ 11 February 2012 ⋅ Post a comment

Consulting in the manufacturing sector has traditionally either been big business or virtually no business depending on the country you work in.  A hugely important part of the German economy, the sector accounts for more than a quarter of all consulting there,  it’s only about a tenth of the UK market where it’s dwarfed by [...]

Social media: the medium and the message

By ⋅ 12 January 2012 ⋅ Post a comment

Watching yet another presentation from yet another social media expert I’m suddenly overcome by a wave of…something. Is it anger? Well yes, in part. Frankly I’m fed up of the consensus being peddled by people who have set themselves up to profit from these things that if I don’t get with the programme where social [...]

It’s Showtime, folks

By ⋅ 10 January 2012 ⋅ One comment

The news that American TV company Showtime is launching a new comedy series about management consultants, subtly entitled House of Lies makes for a depressing start to the year for anyone working in the consulting industry.  But it’s also a timely reminder that any attempts to improve the image of management consultants in the media [...]

The Age of Mass Production – or what the Clangers have to teach us about thought leadership

By ⋅ 19 December 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

“Our thought leadership production process is a well-oil machine.”  It was a throwaway line someone said in early December which has been reverberating around in my head ever since, for several reasons. First off, many consulting firms wouldn’t agree.  For them, producing thought leadership continues to be a struggle to get agreement around which subjects [...]

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