Wednesday 13th Jan, 2016
By Edward Haigh Corporate communications can be pretty dull at the best of times. The controls that firms put in place around external communications are predicated on the need to stop something terrible happening, rather than on the need to start something wonderful happening. They’re about being safe, and the price of safety is usually the removal of anything remotely interesting. And so we get lots of “we’re focused on delivering the best outcomes to our customers”, and that sort of thing. Safe. Predictable. Laudable, of course. But dull.
Tuesday 19th May, 2015
By Fiona Czerniawska Last year, when we asked clients about the most important factors which influence their opinion about a given consulting firm, they told us it was the quality of people they encountered (no surprise there: consulting, as we keep saying, is the quintessential people business) and the results delivered (this was more of a surprise to some firms, though it really shouldn’t have been). The same two factors top the list when we look at this year’s data. But then we realised we’d been missing something obvious.
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.
Tuesday 17th Mar, 2015
By Fiona Czerniawska “What would I advise a consulting firm to do? Spend more time on relationship development. We have a very, very good account manager: he sleeps, eats, and breathes our industry; he meets with us once a month just to have coffee and talk about the state of the business – it isn't a sales call, just something he thinks is important to do. And the people he brings with him are just the same.”
Tuesday 27th Jan, 2015
“You see, but you don’t observe,” Sherlock Holmes said in A Scandal in Bohemia. Having spent part of the last few days looking at client feedback surveys done by two different firms, I’m tempted to add that we listen, but we don’t hear. Consulting firms are certainly listening. I don’t know a single large firm that doesn’t send out questionnaires to their clients or dispatch senior partners to have in-depth conversations with their key accounts. My question is whether they’re really hearing.
Sunday 7th Dec, 2014
By Jodi Davies “It’s very hard for firms to differentiate themselves from each other – they all become the same. It’s often only the accent of the person I’m speaking to or the logo at the bottom of their presentation that’s different.” Every consulting firm likes to think it’s special; many believe they’ve got a distinctive position in the market, but this comment, from a senior Saudi client, says it all. Even hardened clients find it difficult to tell firms apart.
Monday 24th Nov, 2014
By Edward Haigh Most consulting firms give fairly short shift to marketing at the best of times. Seen by many as a function whose remit extends as far as producing shiny brochures and organising events, the average marketing department is under-funded, under-staffed and - by my reckoning - misunderstood.
Wednesday 8th Oct, 2014
In September we were joined for a week by Alice Moore, who was about to head off to Oxford University to read English. Her main task involved assessing the relative strengths and weaknesses of consulting firms' websites, making her now (among other things) the world expert on how German consulting firms present themselves online (seriously, who else has ever spent an entire week looking at nothing else?). Coming to this as a non-consultant, we suspect her views reflect those of clients. Here's what she had to say...
Wednesday 21st May, 2014
By Fiona Czerniawska They’re a hard-bitten, cynical bunch of executives in the UK. Many are ex-consultants, familiar with what they think of as the tricks of the trade. If they don’t have direct experience of working with a firm, they assume that quality will be average at best and that the value generated during the course of a consulting engagement will be no more and no less than the fees charged. True, once they’ve worked with you, they tend to be a bit more positive, but there’s a stubborn minority (just under 10% of the market) who think quality is poor or very poor.
Tuesday 28th Jan, 2014
By Fiona Czerniawska You know your clients. You know what they think about you. But do you know why think what they do?
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