Inarticulate ramblings of a management consultant

the day to day experiences of a consultant operating in weird and wonderful client situations

emerging markets

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The creation of one of the largest consulting businesses…..ever!

As part of the new podcast series from the Agile Gorilla Collective, David Boyd, Abhay Pande, Paul Siegenthaler (you can find their bios here https://theagilegorilla.com/collective – they are an impressive bunch of people!) and I talk through the separation of the EY consulting business as much discussed and written about over the past few months. We address both the operational implications, the impact on clients and how to address the human […]

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East goes West – interview with Han Meng Chan, ADL Capital

East Goes West is a series of podcasts focused on the challenge of Asian businesses coming to Europe and the US. Abhay Pande and conducted a series of interview with senior Asian leaders to understand a little more of the cultural complexity that exists across the Asian landscape, recognise the key differences and start to think about what an Asian owner might expect of a European and American  business. The […]

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Acquisition in an emerging market – integrating the ‘ways of working’ – an exercise in futility?

The final instalment of this series of blogs, from the perspective of a mythical CEO of a family owned business being acquired by a multinational corporate. It is based on my experience of deals across Asia and is not specific to one particular transaction. If you’d like to read the previous parts (which may make sense as they’re written in chronological order), you can access them here – Due diligence, […]

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An acquisition in an emerging market from the perspective of the acquired CEO – two steps forward?

By popular demand (from the exclusive few that appear to read this blog), this is part 3 of a series based on the experience on a fictional CEO in an emerging market going through an acquisition by a multinational corporate. If you’ve wondered onto this blog by accident, firstly, my sympathies and secondly, it may make some sense to read them in the order that they’ve been written. The link […]

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Due diligence in an emerging market – the management interviews – lots of communication, perhaps less understanding!

Last week I explored the challenges of doing diligence on a fictitious family owned business based in Indonesia, from the perspective of the CEO (the link is here if you missed it). This week, let’s have a playful look at the next stage in the process…the management interviews, again from the perspective of the CEO of the business being acquired. This is the accumulation of a number of my experiences […]

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Due diligence in an emerging market…identifying the right channels of information, sticking to the 80% rule and managing your parent!

I’ve written this blog from the perspective of the business which is being acquired…all of the examples below are from real situations but not from the same deal. I challenge you to picture yourself in this scenario: You’re the first, professional, externally appointed CEO of a family owned manufacturing business in Indonesia. Your business has been built over 2 generations and occupies a prominent position in the sector you occupy, […]

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