Apr
26
2018
Forbes’ annual “Best” Consulting Firms has elicited a fair bit of chest-thumping by many of the the 229 firms that made the list. Then again, with 32 sectors and services areas and multiple sub-lists by size and function, virtually every firm scores well in one category or another. So huzzahs all around, and feel free to pop the champagne.
Apr
19
2018
I’m often asked what’s meant when consulting firms “productize” their services. In the classic sense, we’re describing how they codify their service process/delivery for repeatability and scalability.
Apr
12
2018
Fairly often, I’m asked about “mid-market” consulting firms. We typically characterize providers with revenues of $100m-$500m as occupying the mid-market -- not small and specialized like boutiques, but not gargantuan and multi-dimensional like global firms.
Apr
6
2018
Reading assertions of management consulting's demise resembles those stories where the hero experiences perpetual near-death experiences, but never quite dies. A recent special report from The Economist offers that same riff; this time artificial intelligence (AI) will, among other things, put the nail in the coffin of general management consultants.
Mar
29
2018
Data has always been considered the currency of modern management consulting. Collect enough data, run it through myriad analyses, and one derives “knowledge.” Consultants then apply that knowledge to a business problem, which results in recommendations for improvement.
Mar
22
2018
Consultancies typically follow a fairly linear path in terms of growth and maturity. There are various thresholds that firms face - primarily in size - that can prove difficult to cross. Many firms remain mired at levels <$20m annual revenue due to their inability to manage rapid growth.
Mar
15
2018
Almost 18 years ago, this appeared in Harvard Management Update (a then side-journal to HBR):
Mar
8
2018
A recent study in the UK questions the value management consultants have created for National Health Services, the UK's publicly funded national healthcare system. The NHS is the largest single-payer healthcare system in the world ... and a ripe target for efficiency programs.
Mar
1
2018
About once every nine years, management consulting used to go through a ritual; the world would hear that McKinsey was electing a new global managing partner. Like the devout worshipers flocking St. Peters square, all eyes would turn upward awaiting the burning of partners' ballots. White smoke or black smoke? Who would wear the shoes of Marvin Bower?
Feb
22
2018
Consulting’s foundation has always been built on the partnership model. I had two reminders this week that cracks to that model are becoming more pronounced.
