Thursday 12th May, 2016
By B.J. Richards.
The management consultant and the computer nerd. Hardly the same species, it’s almost as though they are of two different worlds. One is slick, well-manicured, and effortlessly works the room in a suit that cost more than my rent. The other spends long, solitary nights hopped up on Mountain Dew, furiously tapping away at a keyboard, clad in a Cheeto-stained hoodie.
Could they ever learn to get along, to join forces for the common good? Perhaps if the fate of the world hung in the balance. How about the fate of the Benelux consulting market?
Like consulting firms in most markets, those in the Benelux region are facing a dire shortage of consultants with the digital skills they need to grow. Unable to hire, acquire, or train techy consultants as quickly as the market demands, some are taking a drastic step: They’re admitting they won’t always be able to find the consulting skills and the digital skills they need in the same person, and they’re restructuring their talent strategies accordingly.
Monday 28th Jul, 2014
By Edward Haigh You can divide IT expenditure, slightly crudely, into two camps at the moment: The first is about upgrading, repairing and replacing existing IT systems. It's what a lot of people would think of as the old world of IT. It's about big, enterprise-wide, centralised, systems. The second is about digitisation: it's about big data and analytics, social media, mobile, cloud, the internet of things, and all that sort of stuff.
Friday 18th Jul, 2014
By Edward Haigh A year ago I asked an Indian systems integrator if they were planning to target the French market where organisations were in deep cost cutting mode. “Too hard,” was the response: leaving aside the usual barriers to doing business in France (have you been to the right école?), French businesses were thought to be culturally inclined against IT outsourcing and strict labour laws precluded most of the potential savings.
Wednesday 16th Jul, 2014
By Edward Haigh My frequent trips across the North Atlantic over the last year or so have served to illustrate many things: it really ought to be simpler, by now, to get from Kennedy airport into Manhattan; Texas has more private medical centres than cowboys; you don’t need a whole Chicago deep-pan pizza to yourself; technology rules.
Friday 11th Jul, 2014
By Fiona Czerniawska “Pessimists will no doubt despair,” begins our report on consulting in the Benelux region, “not least because while we foresee a slight uptick in 2014, there remains little to suggest that Benelux consulting firms are about to start seeing the levels of growth enjoyed by their neighbours to the west and east.”
Friday 2nd Nov, 2012
That headline caught my eye on Tuesday evening. Based on a recently published book, a two page spread in the i newspaper eloquently explained a handful of ways in which we mislead ourselves every day. “You are an unreliable narrator and this is because you’re unaware of how unaware you are,” says David McRaney, the book’s author. One paragraph resonated particularly strongly: “The misconception: your opinions are the result of years of rational, objective analysis.
Thursday 2nd Sep, 2010
The recent announcement that PwC is acquiring Diamond Consultants isn't – and is – a surprise. In the race to close the gap that Deloitte is perceived to have opened up between itself and the consulting practices of the other Big Four firms, technology is critical. Whether you like it or not, much consulting is driven directly or indirectly by IT changes. New systems don’t just create work for the software vendors and others who implement technology, but typically trigger a raft of changes to working practices and organisational structures.
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