Thursday 30th Jul, 2015
By Alison Huntington It’s always slightly creepy when you meet someone new and they say, “I’ve heard a lot about you.” Oh god, you think as a cold sweat forms on your brow, what on earth have you heard about me? Not the tale of that office Christmas party? Or could they have heard good things that you now need to live up to? The impression people form before meeting or working with you can help or hinder your relationship, and can take a fair amount of effort to change it.
Monday 12th Sep, 2011
As I recently pointed out, the recession has apparently not cured clients – or consulting firms, for that matter – of their confusion between “staff substitution” or “contingent labour” and true consulting.
Tuesday 22nd Feb, 2011
Management consulting is sometimes – and I think erroneously – described as a profession.
Wednesday 5th Jan, 2011
Value has never been a more important – or contentious – issue in consulting. Much of the discussion around cutting back on the use of consultants during the recession, now being echoed in public sectors across the world, stems from the difficulty in measuring the contribution consultants make and consequent lack of evidence of value added.
Monday 22nd Nov, 2010
What do a pen and a children’s playground have in common?
Tuesday 16th Nov, 2010
What is it about the consulting industry? It picks up harmless, unassuming phrases and converts them into linguistic behemoths. “Working in partnership” is now so ubiquitous it’s become the equivalent of an “um” or “er” in a firm’s marketing material, filling the gap when it can’t think of anything else to say.
Thursday 14th Oct, 2010
Our latest survey of quarterly buying trends gives an idea of just how fast public sector consulting is changing.
It’s a point we’ll be exploring further in a report to be published later in the autumn, but we included a few extra questions in our standard quarterly survey, just to test the water, with interesting results.
Thursday 16th Sep, 2010
I suppose it was only a matter of time.
Thursday 19th Aug, 2010
When we carry out the research for our briefing notes, we usually ask consulting firms what – in their opinion – the main causes of underperforming consulting projects are. Having written 18 briefing notes so far we’re starting to see a few issues cropping up consistently, so we thought we’d share them with you.
Thursday 12th Aug, 2010
Speaking to a senior executive within the pharmaceutical industry about the value consultants deliver recently, I was struck by one particular comment: ‘Everyone knows that half of consulting works and that the other half doesn’t’, he said. ‘The trouble is, you never know which half you’re going to get.’
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