Tuesday 4th Jul, 2017
By Alison Huntington.
Apparently, it’s true: People own dogs that look like themselves. A 2015 experiment revealed that by just looking at pooch and owner, it’s easy to match them up because their hairstyles and eye shape tend to be similar. Aside from wondering who on earth funds this sort of research, it made me think that there’s perhaps a parallel: Consulting firms’ offices tend to look like their owners.
Tuesday 23rd May, 2017
By Fiona Czerniawska.
One of the big questions in consulting at the moment is where the industry starts and ends.
Digital transformation, big data & analytics, and cybersecurity—the three biggest sources of growth for consulting firms right now—all challenge the boundaries of what we’ve conventionally called consulting. Software specialists, data scientists, and even close circuit TV companies all have a role to play in consulting if recent acquisitions by consulting firms are anything to go by. But all of this activity—I’d argue—has been aimed at assimilating new services into the consulting model, not at changing it. The largest consulting firms are creating ecosystems in which they decide who’s in and who’s out based on their vision of the market, as they see it evolving from a consulting-centric viewpoint.
Tuesday 31st Jan, 2017
By Fiona Czerniawska.
Go to the top of Dubai’s Burj Khalifa and you can see not only the ornate, blue swirls of the marina below, but also miles across the desert to the point where the dust and the desert blur. Look at it from the bottom, and it’s hard to imagine that it’s possible to build something even higher than its fragile, filigree pinnacle.
Monday 23rd Jan, 2017
By Fiona Czerniawska.
“The difference between cybersecurity and other types of risk is that, with cyber, we have to assume we’re being attacked right now, we just haven’t realised it.” That’s how a client we recently interviewed summed up his organisation’s attitude—and he’s not alone: other forms of risk (regulatory, reputational, operational) may be possible, but cyber attacks are a reality.
Wednesday 21st Dec, 2016
By Fiona Czerniawska.
*At Source, we’re used to hearing the phrase, “a war for talent”, but recent interviewees have talked about “the war on talent”. We report back from the frontline.
[THE SCENE: 1917. A PATCHY MIST ROLLS ACROSS A MUDDY FIELD, POCKMARKED WITH SHELL HOLES AND STUDDED WITH THE STUMPS OF DEAD TREES. IN A TRENCH, TWO MEN COWER, WHILE A THIRD TRAINS HIS BINOCULARS ON THE RIDGE AHEAD OF THEM.]
Captain: [REMINISCING] … the jolly old days when you’d be positively tripping over decent people. Recruitment was like shooting fish in a barrel…
Corporal: [SHOUTING] Sir! Business analysts coming over the top!!
Wednesday 14th Dec, 2016
By Fiona Czerniawska.
This isn’t my idea: it came from Simon Harris at Oliver Wyman (for my money, one of the best thinkers in the consulting industry), and it certainly got me thinking…
Thursday 24th Nov, 2016
By Edward Haigh.
That’s the deliberately slightly playful question we’ve been asking consulting leaders recently, as part of our research into what’s going on from a talent perspective. And it’s already elicited some interesting responses.
The one that caught my attention the other day was someone saying that they’d build more relationships with small specialist firms.
Tuesday 1st Dec, 2015
Japanese clients are a hard bunch to win over. Consulting has never taken off in that market nearly to the extent it has in other major economies, and consultants we spoke with estimate that only about half of the businesses they’d expect to be buying consulting actually are. It’s a culture that doesn’t think much of investing in intangibles like advice, and while interest is definitely picking up, this is a market that has a long way to go if consulting is ever to become the norm.
Friday 26th Jun, 2015
What on Earth were they thinking?
Monday 10th Dec, 2012
If you haven’t already seen it, you might want to read Steve Denning’s article in Forbes about the rise and fall of Monitor. How, the author asks, could a firm renowned for helping its clients exploit their competitive advantage fail so dramatically to exploit its own? He lays the blame for Monitor’s demise firmly at the door of Michael Porter’s Five Forces strategy, probably one of the most famous conceptual models and certainly one o
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