Global problems, American style

By B.J. Richards

As the iconic theme song from Cheers would have us know, ‘our troubles are all the same’, and we at Source have certainly found that to be the case among the world’s management consultants.  Each year, we speak to hundreds of consultants in dozens of markets all over the globe, and whether they’re in New York or Nairobi, their frustrations are always strikingly similar.  We have a hard time finding the right people, they tell us.  We’re having to specialize like never before, we hear.  Clients are putting pressure on prices, we note for the thousandth time.  Believe me, we’ve heard it all -- and we’ve heard it time and time again.

But what never fails to amaze is that while the problems are always the same, they still manage to manifest with distinctly local flavors -- as if a malevolent and endlessly creative consulting god has cursed everyone with the same afflictions but allowed them to play out differently depending on the specific circumstances of the cursed.

Let’s look, for example, at the challenge presented by the near universal demand that consultants be both global and local at the same time.  Here’s one where New York and Nairobi (and Paris and Beijing and São Paulo and Mumbai) clearly agree: clients want consultants who not only have global experience but are also deeply and truly local in their way of thinking.

Now, in Nairobi, this typically means that local clients are sick of seeing Europeans fly into east Africa with little or no understanding of the local economy or culture, hawking solutions that would probably be a fine fit in London but that are wholly inappropriate for the client on the ground.  That certainly sounds enormously frustrating, and it’s easy to see why the Nairobi client wants fellow Kenyans to be intimately involved in developing their solutions.

But American clients are making the same demand. And it’s not because the client in Phoenix is sick of seeing Europeans; it’s because he’s sick of seeing New Yorkers.  Now this isn’t because New York consultants don’t understand the unique Phoenix scene -- America has long been homogenous enough that, if you understand how things work in New York, you can be expected to have a pretty good grasp of how they work in Phoenix, too.  And it’s not that there's anything particularly wrong with New Yorkers -- even a Fenway-faithful Bostonian like myself has to admit that as long as they keep their highly offensive opinions on sports and chowder to themselves, they are, for the most part, entirely tolerable.

So, what does the Phoenix client have against New York consultants?  Well, the issue is often as mundane as his wallet: flying in all these consultants from New York and putting them up in nice hotels is a pricey endeavor, and it leaves the client wondering why he, despite being in a top 20 US market, can’t find the services he needs among locals who go home to their own beds at night for no additional charge.

There’s also the matter of relationships. Just as consultants repeat similar themes all over the world, so too do clients, and one strong theme among clients right now is that they want to have long-term relationships with the consultants they employ.  They want to work with trusted people who know them and know their business, who can work with them on project after project, who are only a lunch meeting away, and who can hold their hands through their hardest decisions.  This isn’t the type of relationship you build when you’re flying consultants in from 2,500 miles away on an ad hoc basis -- this is the type of relationship you can only build with fellow locals. And, again, the client in Phoenix wants to know why he can’t have that while the client in New York can. So, what to do?  Conveniently enough, just as the problems are often the same, so too are the answers. Those Europeans servicing Nairobi would likely do well to set up a local office and make some local hires, and the New Yorkers in Phoenix might consider doing the same.  Of course, this answer raises new questions of its own.  How will the Nairobi office find enough well-educated professionals to make a go of it?  How will the swamped New York firm spare a few of its practice leaders to go head up the new Phoenix branch?  Lucky for us at Source, we don’t have to figure that out, but we look forward to seeing your solutions.  Something tells us they’ll look surprisingly similar.