Instinct

By Alison Huntington.

By many metrics in our annual survey of clients’ opinions about consulting firms, IBM Global Business Services is doing extremely well. It’s top-rated for the quality of the work it provides in a range of consulting services, and, as we’ve discussed previously on these pages, manages to turn the heads of clients of firms like McKinsey. Other studies seem to confirm the power of the IBM brand—in a 2017 survey by Interbrand, it was ranked as the tenth “best brand” in the world.*

So can the IBM brand team put their feet up for the rest of the year? Is their work here done? We suspect not: Despite their many successes, there’s evidence that, for the consulting part of their business at least, there’s still some way to go.

By Fiona Czerniawska.

Imagine you’re walking down the supermarket aisle looking for breakfast cereal. Bored with the one you’ve been eating all these years, you’re in the market for a change. You pick up the first one that catches your eye. “MEGAPOPS”, the package shouts in an unnecessarily lurid colour, “THE BEST WAY TO START YOUR DAY WITH A ZING!!!!” You look for the small print, some tentative indicator of what a zing is in this context—but there isn’t any. “SUNNYNUGGETS,” screams the next, “GOLDEN! DELICIOUS! FAST!” But is it healthy? Well, there’s nothing to tell you that. As consumers we wouldn’t—and don’t—put up with this. Decades of regulation and government intervention ensures that we’re in a position to make informed choices about our breakfast cereal. Sure: We can—and many of us do—choose to ignore them. Sure: There are still improvements to be made to the labelling. But on balance, as consumers, we’re the best-informed generation in the history of humanity.

If only that were true for consulting.

By Alison Huntington.

You know the feeling: You’ve seen the dress online, or the fancy watch in a shop window. I’ll look so good in it, you think. It’ll be just perfect to wear to that wedding next month, you think. I’ll get compliments from strangers, you think. Life will be better.

But you try it on and it’s not quite right. It’s too big around the middle, the colour isn’t quite right. The oversized watch face makes your wrist look like an udon noodle. You really want it to be the one for you, but after standing there for a few minutes trying to persuade yourself that it’s right, you reluctantly concede that it isn’t.

Clients of consulting firms describe a similar journey with the consulting firms they encounter.