Wednesday 24th Jan, 2018
By Rachel Duk. Here at Source Towers, we were thrilled to learn that the occasionally humdrum world of consulting received an injection of celebrity stardust this week, with the announcement that Ed Sheeran is set to wed his long-time girlfriend, Cherry Seaborn. As the rumour network would have it, Cherry moves in entirely different professional circles to Ed; she’s currently to be found working as a risk consultant at Deloitte. The mind boggles as to their evening conversation topics, although the inspiration for Ed’s hit “Don’t” suddenly becomes clear: It’s the mantra risk consultants around the world wish their clients would follow. We assume there have been times when Cherry’s commitment to her career choice has been tested. It must be a very particular dagger to the heart when your beloved rings you from his sell out arena tour, while you are sitting in a windowless New Street Square office battling with conditional formatting. But suddenly—with a wedding to plan—Cherry’s risk career is looking like the canny choice for that most critical of tasks: The wedding risk log.
Thursday 21st Dec, 2017
By Alison Huntington, Rachel Duk, and Fiona Czerniawska.
It’s time for globe-trotting management consultants to put their suitcases down and their slippers on. The Source team has been looking along our bookshelves to find overlooked classics to read this Christmas:
‘Little Consulting Firm on the Prairie’, a heart-warming Christmas episode in which Ma persuades Pa not to put copies of his new business book under the tree, but go out and shoot a proper bear before they all starve.
Thursday 15th Sep, 2016
By Julie Ahadi.
We think it’s time to introduce the concept of conference call hold music etiquette to consulting firms. It’s not that we aren’t amused by some of the choices we have been subjected to of late– indeed, we’ve enjoyed singing along to a veritable smorgasbord of 90s hip-hop classics and contemporary favourites, jam-packed with innuendo and funky beats. What we struggle with, however, is listening to Britney Spears one minute, and the Global Marketing Director of a strategy firm and 15 partners the next. As anyone in their right mind would know, it’s virtually impossible not to finish off the lyrics: “When I’m not with you I lose my mind–Give me a sign…”
Wednesday 17th Aug, 2016
By Fiona Czerniawska.
Recent spring-cleaning of the Source corporate loft turned up a tantalising fragment of the famed lost play…
Scene 1: A drab suburban sitting room. Hairy is hunched over his laptop, his middle-aged brow furrowed as he tries to sort through his expenses. His wife, Hernia, sits next to him on the sofa, reading the Harvard Business Review.
Wednesday 16th Dec, 2015
Santa, Many thanks for your time yesterday. It was very useful to get feedback from you and your colleagues around our interim findings, and I thought it would be helpful to summarise the key points of the discussion. We’re all aware that the current business model leaves you exposed on several fronts. Amazon is just one of many possible players who could seriously threaten your position as a ‘category of one’, but the chances are high that specialist Xmastech firms will also emerge that exploit specific pain points in what we can all agree is now a massively overstretched operation.
Thursday 20th Aug, 2015
Way back in 1966 – the only time the English football team has properly passed a performance review – The Frost Report ran a sketch that skewered the British obsession with class. Arranging John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett by size is funny enough (Corbett is barely half the height of Cleese) but it soon emerges that they’re also arranged by social status. Some of the famous lines, which are almost a national institution in themselves, run:
Thursday 2nd Jul, 2015
By Alison Huntington The ‘bromance’ may be a fading Hollywood genre, but it’s alive and well in the world of consulting. Having been kindly invited to several analyst days with consulting firms, it struck me that the clients wheeled out to sing a firm’s praises are always men. And then I noticed that it’s always men introducing them. No, I lie – I heard one female partner speak at a tech firm once, and her specialism was (you guessed it) HR.
Wednesday 1st Apr, 2015
By Alison Huntington What happened to the days when the streets were paved with gold? Having interviewed hundreds of senior consultants around the world for Source’s 2015 Consulting Market Programme, one thing that frequently comes up is rates – specifically, the pressure to reduce them.
Thursday 26th Mar, 2015
Consultants looking for fashion tips are in the wrong place here. Just keep it simple: well-cut suit, crisp white shirt, smart shoes. Ditch the novelty tie. You’ll be fine. Consultants interested in branding, on the other hand, should stick around. And judging by the conversations we’ve been having with people in consulting firms recently, many of you will.
Wednesday 17th Dec, 2014
By Alison Huntington Consulting firms in the UK did rather well in an article published in The Metro last week. It highlighted a survey by Glassdoor that revealed three of the big consulting firms are in the top ten best places to work. Accenture came in at fourth place -- behind only Google, John Lewis and Microsoft -- and Deloitte and PwC snuck into to the top ten in ninth and tenth place respectively.
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