I was with a new client today to discuss a new procurement initiative for a business which spans 14 countries in Asia. The initial transaction which formed this large and very successful operation was completed in late 2008, an incredible time to make an acquisition both in terms of price and expectation management in terms of shareholders. Since then it has performed extraordinarily well both in terms of growth and […]
The continual cycle for most consultants is that of sales to delivery to sales…..hopefully with as little downtime inbetween as possible. What’s interesting is that the skill sets for sales and delivery are often perceived as fundamentally different, that somehow we have to morph into different people to be able to make this transition effectively. One of the greatest moments of resistance one gets from consulting teams is often based […]
Selling a consultancy is challenging and often not very financially rewarding. I’ve done it a couple of times and what looks like a great opportunity to generate some return for all the effort, is incredibly hard work and often not very lucrative. When you talk to advisers, they will talk about intellectual property a lot. A classic question would be, “what have you got which a buyer might be able […]
The usual story about consultants checking your watch and telling you what time it is, has preoccupied me for a while now…primarily because it’s often true. The presumption behind the story is that the client knows his issues well and doesn’t need any diagnostic. In fact, increasingly consultants don’t do diagnostic or analysis any more, at least not officially and primarily because clients don’t want to pay for this service. […]
