This is a link to a podcast on Alan Weiss’ blog called Contrarian consulting.
I have never really been into podcasts. Very dull, boring and not very inspiring oratory generally. Young Mr. Weiss has blown yet another illusion for me with this excellent podcast on taking risk and the benefits as a consultant.
After a while thinking about this I have come to the conclusion that not only should consultants blog, but if they do not then they are missing a fantastic marketing opportunity!
We are uniquely placed to generate traffic through blogging, particularly in areas of business and technology. We have deep subject matter experience, we are (should be) prolific networkers, we have to be ahead of the curve with relation to technological advances and business trends, and we have one final advantage…We know how to write!
Show me a consultant who doesn’t regularly burn the midnight oil trying to get through (yet another) 75 page report for an impatient client (or clients) and I’ll show you someone who thinks he’s a client.
So in terms of the skills to do it, we are okay…But why should we bother?
Why Blog??
There are a lot of reasons why Consultants should look seriously at developing their own individual or company produced blog site. But chief among them is for marketing!!
Today we are all starting to get pretty savvy about marketing. We know that our potential clients have diverse interests, use diverse media sources, and use different networking techniques than they used to even two short years ago!
So if you are going to reach our targeted audience then marketing tools we use need to cover a lot of diverse areas. Print media, online ads, targeted online networking, letters of introduction, cold calling and free seminars all have their place. And so does blogging.
Being able to have an online, search-able base of content relevant to your target audience means that they are more likely to stumble on it when they search for information related to what they do. Not only that, but they can subscribe to the feed, having regular updates in their email of RSS Reader.
As well as prospecting for new clients, you can use your Blog to keep in touch with old clients, reach other levels of the organization within current clients. Once you have your attention you can use your blog to point out finer points of areas that you work in, detail new services and technologies your company is now offering, or even to provide a contrary point of view.
Have a look at some of the recognized names in our field; David Maister (The Trusted Adviser, Strategy and the Fat Smoker), or Alan Weiss (Million Dollar Consulting, Getting Started in Consulting) or a company like CapGemini.. all have supported their existing large scale online presence through actively communicating with prospects and clients through blogging.
There are some rules to blogging though… these are unwritten rules. The sorts of things that are decided quietly by the viewing masses of internet traffic. So we will look in a little more detail about how to start your blogging project, the “rules of engagement” in blogging, and some of the ways to drive it to new heights. (Some of which I am still learning)
Step: 1 – Get a Name
Work out what you are going to blog about and find a drop-dead GREAT name. Ten years ago this was not too difficult, but today you have to think not only about the name itself, but the domain also. There are some pretty good tools online to start playing around with words, one of these is Morewords, and there is another one called WordLab.
Another source is also to start scouring the internet and looking through the sites and blogs that are dedicated to what you are doing. (Inspiration WILL come to you on this)
I am still not sure where “Consulting Pulse” came from, but it really describes the intentions of what I am trying to do with this blog.
Step: 2 – Registering and Domains
With the title now decided you need to start building the Blog site.
I am not a WordPress fan. For me the Blogger site from Google is a great product. it allows you to build a good looking blog site
very easily using drag and drop functionality. So for beginning bloggers, as I was, this is my choice. register a name and get started almost instantly.
Next stop is optional: Register a Domain.
I have used GoDaddy.com for a while now and they seem to be a pretty good, very reliable source of web hosting. I had cause to call their customer service one time and the young man who answered the telephone, in perfect American English, was extremely polite and helpful – for that reason alone GoDaddy.com gets my vote.
The argument goes like this; if you want anyone to take you seriously as a blogger, then having a website called Fantasticblog.blogspot.com just won’t cut it.
It also helps to further deepen your brand recognition and get people to start entering your address by typing rather than searching.
Step 3: Does it look alright?
Blogger is very easy to use and will enable you to get going pretty quickly. The blog I write in my own consulting area (very dry engineering themes) is on a standard Blogger template and for now I am happy with that.
But for this Blog, I wanted to create something that looked great, drew people in, and gave me space for advertising, promotions and for cross linking. So I have created a modified template format, as well as putting a range of additional functions on there.
Things like hiding the blue blogger bar, the “Read More…” links at the bottom of each post, the 
menu at the top of the page, the site logo, and I am still working on a few more little changes here and there.
All of this I gleaned from the sire BloggerBuster.com The author, Amanda, has done a great job of building templates, posting tips and keeping up with trends in the world of blogging. Here site is my first port of call when I need to know how to do something that I have seen and is impressive.
There are other resources around the web. Widgets for recommendations, comments, tracking and so forth. Some are okay, some are garbage, and some are traffic scams.. so take care with it.
Step: 4 – Traffic
This is what its all about. To get traffic you need three things. a) A good site, b) great content and c) social marketing.
We have talked about design and naming, so what you really need now is a way to draw in subscribers. (Not just readers!)
So to set yourself up to attract people who will take your blog and put it on their Google Home Page or in their RSS reader, you need to be able to offer them ways of getting updates to your content.
I use Feedburner, but I am told that FeedBlitz is also a very good tool for this. It allows me to provide readers with a two click option for subscribing to the feed, easy stuff. it will also allow me to place an email subscription box on my blog so that readers can receive the items in their email newsletter style.
Feedburner gives you all sorts of options to be able to customize your feed, make it compatible with all sorts of platforms, tools and widgets to promote it, and a whole range of other functions. It will also enable you to add Feedflares. (Great stuff)
These are links at the bottom of the post that will enable your readers to share it with others on one of the many bookmarking and social networking sites. (More about that later)
As you go on you can also add your own Feedflares. I have two additional ones. One for the Jobs Board associated with the site and one for readers to rate each post. (Which is probably going to have to change unfortunately.)
Good Content
Okay, harder. You, as the consultant, should already have a bit to write about as well as the skills to do so. BUT, if you don’t or if you get writers block or whatever, then there are numerous sources to help you to develop ideas.
Set up a reader, iGoogle is an easy one to get moving with quickly, and then subscribe to regular feeds that contain issues related to what you want to write about. Also, set up a number of Google news Alerts to do the same. If you want to go to extremes and be on top of information a little bit further then you can also use Businesswire.com or one of the other press release distribution websites.
There are also lots of posts out there on how to write a blog post. Mine tend to be a bit long I think, but you can decide for yourself. One thing I try to do is make it personal, and to involve as many people as I can in the conversation.
Another thing you could try to do is interview industry leaders, pioneers and long time operators in specific fields of endeavor. This adds to the flavor of the blog and stops it being just your opinion. I find a lot of these on LinkedIn, and most of them are keen to help often.
Traffic
Again harder and not something I have totally mastered yet. At the base of my posts you will notice a lot of links for Digg, StumbleUpon and Newsvine. These sites allow readers to bookmark items that interest them so that others can find them and read them. So it allows readers to promote your site without your involvement.
It takes some doing, and to be honest I am struggling with it at present. But it seems to be going the right direction. other sites include Technorati which lists the 100 most popular blogs. So register your blog there also so that others can look through it and check out what you are writing about.
What you need here is your Gmail account, or other free account Gmail
is best in my view) and start registering on all of these sites so that you can also see whats going on, as well as promoting your own stuff (ethically) where possible. (Also post to your Facebook page, good one for you if you have a lot of Facebook types in your industry)All this is about traffic. If you get to the top 100 then you are drawing a lot of internet views on a regular basis. And you do so, in part, through gaining “fans” in these communities. There are also a lot of people out there who talk a lot about S.E.O, which is Search Engine Optimization.
I am not very knowledgeable in this area, but I can’t see the logic of it all really. For me, if you have good content which is relevant to what your readers will be looking for, then it will show up on the search engines. I draw a lot of “search” visitors now and I have done absolutely nothing in this area.
Traffic-(2)
There has been a lot written about the death of the e-newsletter business and I for one don’t buy it. As well as everything else I publish a regular newsletter for this site and the ConsultingHub network we are building. We get a good response too, a lot of open and clicks so people will still take the time to read information that is useful and of interest to them.
So thats it for this subject, there is as lot more and I will probably revisit this again in the future. One area where we could probably talk a lot more about is monetizing your blog, analyzing traffic flows and optimizing them, as well a whole range of options for you in the fields of affiliate marketing.
But let me insist with you, if you are a consultant – you need to blog. PERIOD!
But theres another reason why you, or anyone, should get involved in the blogging thing. Regardless of what else you do – Blogging is a lot of fun. Road testing theories, the interaction with others, watching as you site or post gets a lot of hits and so on. Great stuff and I really do enjoy it!
And it would be even more fun if we, the company I worked with, were to launch a company blog. That way a group of us could be free to post at regular intervals, we could each share the workload associated with keeping the blog going, and we would reap the benefits of contributing to thought in our chosen area of expertise.
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I recently read through a great post on the CTO Blog, one of my favorites, about some of the issues that executives in the consulting industry are starting to find with the whole Web 2.0 thing.
Namely, what if not everyone is in the same community?
The MySpace concept is now all through the web with communities springing up with all sorts of different functionalities. I am an avid user of LinkedIn, but I also have a page on Facebook of course. They were talking about Dopplr a site which allows you to post travel plans for your contacts to see. The benefit? They get to see if you can get some “face” time at any point.
Great idea, but I won’t be moving over there. A lot of my network is already on LinkedIn and I am not asking them to move over. I get two or three requests every two weeks to join one site or another these days, but I really don’t want to water down the entire networking experience and potential for me.
This got me to thinking… whats the angle here for consulting opportunity?
What we need in the Web 2.0 space right now, or very (very) soon, is a platform for Web 2.0 type applications. Let’s call it Community-as-a-Service (Ah no.. another one!). The idea would be something like the Force.com idea where developers are given access to the stuff in the background so that they can create their own modifications as they like.
Not the small apps like in Facebook, (Where you can already pull in the Dopplr schedules by the way) but something altogether larger – enabling people to grow their own micro communities with their own specific functionalities. (As opposed to the not-really-scalable stuff in Facebook right now)
For example, CapGemini (lets say) gigantic consulting behemoth, covers most of the world (and what it doesn’t cover doesn’t matter) with consultants all over the globe. The LinkedIn base functionality gives them a good way to stay in touch initially, but they need to take it to a new level.
So, building an in-community ability to post travel schedules, meeting schedules, share track record stories, recommend restaurants and other places all over the globe, vote on them, organize for virtual (Second Life) meetings and – who knows what else…
I think this is what Web 2.0 needs now, and I really hope that it is LinkedIn who does it. I really don’t want to change social network and try to drag all of my contacts with me to another universe.
But, the real thing that hooked me with this idea is that it is an extraordinary opportunity for consultants right now. We missed, most of us, the SaaS revolution, and we are in danger of missing this boat also I think.
So, a service offering that consults on , designs, builds and implements Web 2.0 customized networks based on one of the existing majors would have to be a great Community-as-a-Service starting point.
Is anyone doing anything like this now? I am trying to find out what the IBM Lotus Web 2.0 suite does, but I think it is a little removed from this.
Late update: Just after posting this I read a post on TechCrunch about a product called Mahalo, could be a good starting point?
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One of the things that saddened me a bit last year was the end of Tony Blair’s career as a political leader. Not because I liked his policies or his decisions, but because it signaled the end of an era of political giants.
In my own origin country of Australia we had Paul Keating, in the USA there was Bill Clinton and in the UK Mr Blair. What did these three characters have in common aside from their professed center-left political bias? They loved to win!
If you watch any of these three on the stump it was obvious that “they wanted it” more than the other guy. They almost willed victory at every turn. In fact it is arguable whether Mr Clinton’s instincts in this aspect may even be partly responsible for his wife’s predicament in South Carolina on the weekend.
Tony Blair was so focussed on winning and doing what he thought was the right thing that he faced numerous revolts in one of the British parliaments biggest majority in recent history, Mr Clinton negotiated to get his chosen legislation through an aggresively oppsed senate, and Paul Keating won the unwinnable election, against a driven and ideological opponent.
I was always impressed by all three of these guys when they were on the campaign trail. They never took a backward step, they never let anyone catch them with their guard down, and they always (ALWAYS) came out fighting.
Phenomenal stuff! So who are todays inheretors of this? Until recently there were not many. The new Australian PM, Kevin Rudd, has won over an electorate that was more bored than upse4t with the previous government. Not hard to do when your opponent is possibly one of the most boring men in recent Australian politics.
The UK have retreated into no-personality characters like Gordon brown. (Smart, probably honest, but dead boring) But then there the USA…
I have been watching this campaign, like everyone else, and I cannot help but be impressed by Barrack Obama. An incredible campaigner, he has added an element of spark to the current political season that I have not seen in a long time. He is starting to look like an incoming tide and you almost have to wonder whether the Republican nominee would have any chance of upsetting this wave of popular reaction.
So why so popular? No clue, not for me to speculate.. but I can see one thing very clearly.. he
wants it! He wants it very badly, and he is not afraid to show it!
I saw his concession speech in New Hampshire, and this was what really got to me about the man. It was one of the most rousing and inspiring pieces of political oratory that I have seen in a very long time. There were no backward steps, no allowances for defeatist thinking, no remorse over the spilled milk of New Hampshire… just a relentless “yes we can” drive toward the future and a more positive state of thinking.
This drive to win is a powerful phenomena that sets up a forceful dynamic. Never stopping, never taking a backward step in the overall drive forward, never giving in to hopelessness, and maintaining the positive message at all times all the way through; something that can enhance the implementation of any consulting project. (Big or Small)
Particularly when you are driving for wide ranging user support of a new initiative, technology or process. Implementation is something I have been doing a lot of thinking about recently and something I am going to be posting a lot about here over the next few weeks. But for me, this is step one – if you don’t believe it, get it, support it, and champion it – nobody else will!
When I read Freakonomics for the first time, like everyone else, I was both impressed with the conclusions and amazed with the ease at which the author had arrived at them.
What do I mean by that? If we look at it, all he did was to take large amounts of data, reliable data, and use it to inform his judgements on the issues involved. True, his skills as an interpreter of data and trends allowed him to reach truly unique conclusions – some of which many people have had a very hard time accepting – but he seemed to recognize that making definitive statements about any issue at all requires data, reliable data.
This for me is the legacy of Freakonomics, decisions based on data are difficult to refute, and change the dynamics surrounding any decision at all.
For me, the same goes for any professional organization or Enterprise. When there is an abscence of real and reliable data, then decisions are made using age old trusted techniques.
What are these? Political maneuvering, coalition building, strength of character, emotional pleas, cronyism and all of the really Machiavellian elements of management. (Most of which we have all had to participate in to some degree or another to get things done in the past)
So how can data change this? When you make decisions based on data then the entire dynamic of making decisions is changed permanently. No longer are decisions made by “he who shouts loudest”, but instead they are made based on irrefutable facts. True, the interpretation of these facts is sometimes open to question, but at least the field of choice is substantially narrowed.
So for companies where ERP systems have not yet delivered on their promise, or where Business Intelligence still refers to the experienced people who are about to retire, then they still face a gigantic opportunity in terms of their ability to reduce the time to high confidence, accurate decisions about the future of their organization.
I recently read a post on Guy Kawasaki’s blog, Ten Questions with Garr Reynolds. The theme of the post was around how to deliver more effective presentations based on his book “Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter)“.
Looks like a good book and I am thinking of reading it over the next couple of weeks. (Between the other rash of books I need to read) But it really started me thinking, some of the best presentations that I have delivered have actually been without software.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a dedicated PowerPoint user, all my courses, seminars and presentations generally involve some element of PowerPoint slides in them. But I have also been on the receiving end of several presentations that could only be described as “death by PowerPoint”. So I think it is wise, as well as good practice, for every consultant to be versatile enough to deliver a presentation “cold” without any software at all.
it is …good practice, for every consultant to be versatile enough to deliver a presentation “cold” without any software at all
So here are my top ten tips for delivering presentations without software, feel free to add to them if you think I have missed something.
1. Don’t rush!
It is always tempting to tell them everything you want to tell them within the first five minutes of starting. Particularly if you don’t have a visual aid to slow you down.
Resist the temptation – show a little restraint. Your points need to be built up, and laid out in a manner that will ensure they are understood. Also, don’t try to fit everything you could possibly do into a one hour slot, just build the key issues up.
2. Have a routine
If you are going to go without a net then you need to make sure you know what you are going to say. In the early stages try to have a rough outline of what you are going to run through. Have your strap-lines well rehearsed, sound-bites, emphasis points, sequences and transitions are all a key part of delivering a smooth and coherent message.
Map out your presentation before hand, make sure you have the customary beginning – middle and end, and make sure you reveal the right points, with the right emphasis, at the right time.
Big tip - commit it to memory in the beginning. After a while your goal is to have a range of “routines” that you can pull from your memory depending on the situation. I have a vast number of these that I have built up over the years related to the areas I consult on personally.
I once arrived at a site in Canada (from the UK at the time) only to find that I was expected to deliver a three day course. I had nothing prepared, the client was paying good money for this engagement, and I had not bought a lot of my normal training materials with me. (Aargghhh!)
The results? A three day stand up routine with flip charts and the white board… a resounding success and I still provide advice to these professionals today. (Now from the Middle East)
3. Use Graphics
Even with PowerPoint graphics are an essential element to the transferral of knowledge. They tie in with peoples ability to learn visually and to perceive things without words. They also do a darn sight better at relaying a message than two pages filled with hard to read text.
So, if you don’t have software what can you do?
Flip charts are a fantastic prop to work with. In my view even better than PowerPoint in some aspects. Why? Because they provide you with a level of interaction with the audience that software does not, and you can easily flip between them to discuss previous points etc.
So have a few illustrations ready to go, develop routines to allow you to build them over time, revealing key points along the way, and try to build them to provide a prop for discussions with your audience.
4. Be Socratic
You can either “tell them” or “ask them”. If you are telling them, then they may listen, they may take notice, and they may recall what you were burbling about. But if you ask them then an entirely different dynamic starts to take place.
The goal, ultimately, is to develop sessions and routines where your entire role is to ask the right questions along the right vane. Using their inherent knowledge to reveal the points you wish to reveal to them.
if you ask… then they are far more likely to become engaged in the process.
I have integrated Socratic principles into my training, sales presentations, seminars and consulting discussions. (Socratic Conversation) For me, this was a revelation in training techniques and it is something that has undoubtedly improved my fortunes in the consulting game.
5. Tell Stories
There is something almost primal about the power of storytelling to make a point, relay a message, or to transfer knowledge. Storytelling, when well done, allows you to present facts to back up your case, provides you with an opening to establish the relationship with the client, and gives you some borrowed credibility (from the originator of the story) to make a specific point with some authority.
Stories build over time, I have been able to gather together lots of stories from my own experiences and those that have been shared with me by clients. All good stuff, all great for making very exact points, and they are also all generally very inspiring tales about the potential of human beings to achieve great things.
6. Make Connections
When you don’t use a presentation another dynamic starts to take place. Instead of looking wearily at a screen on the wall, people start to look directly at you! So things change right? You now have a direct opening to create a relationship. (Which is always part of the goal of any presentation – sales or not.)
I am sure there are a lot more useful tips and techniques. These are just a sampling of some of them that I use a lot. if you can deliver stuff without software, then it adds to your credibility as a professional consultant, and as a subject matter expert with deep knowledge.
Also there seems to be another dynamic happening when you talk, particularly Socratically. The believability factor, for reasons I don’t quite understand, seems to go up markedly!
I just saw a video by one of my business heroes Mr Guy Kawasaki where he discusses the new Amazon Kindle. I have been looking into this for some time now and, I have to be honest, I want one!! I really want one! I know what the iPhone groupies went through last year now!
This, to me, is more then a “no-brainer” as Guy puts it, it is a fundamental part of my travel / tool kit from this year forward. My problem… is that right now I live in the Middle East and NOT the USA so RIGHT NOW (when I really want it) I can’t have one!!
Seriously though, I think this is going to provide untold value to consultants, and for a range of reasons.
E-Books are nothing new, but as Jeff Bezos said to Charlie Rose “Nobody has been buying them”. So Amazon has set out to provide a platform, and gadget, that will digitize books, and in the process revolutionize the book industry. SO what are the differences between Kindle and “other” eBook readers, and how will this benefit the consulting industry?
The way I see it, LOTS! For example:
1. Easy access to up to 200 reference books without having to carry them around. Big plus for me. I work in a pretty theoretical area of consulting and I frequently need to cross reference points of view and opinions. This eliminates my mobile library and allows me to have access to an even greater number of references than normal.
2. No need to dock – If I want access to additional reference material I can just purchase it online (At $9.99 or less) and get it delivered in (apparently) less than a minute. AND – no monthly fee for the connection, I was pretty impressed by that.
3. Back up and storage – If I delete any of my books from The Kindle, Amazon immediately holds copies for me. Sounds great, not only my mobile reference material but my entire library.
4. Access to newspapers – I travel a lot. The days when I could wake up every morning and pick up the local newspaper from the front lawn are well and truly behind me now. So this gives me back that level of comfort with regard to the newspapers and magazines that I read.
5. Access to blogs from the internet also.
I’m sure there are other points, but these ones alone really scream CONSULTING TOOL to me. If anybody out there actually has one I would be very interested to learn how it is really going.
The one thing that I see going against this is not really functional but cultural. If we / I do go down The Kindle path, then there will be less books in my home. For me, this is no problem, I have already caught the bad habit of reading a lot. But for my young kids its a big issue, they won’t see books around the house, and they won’t just pick one up every now and then to see what Daddy spends his time reading.
There are so many gadgets and doo-hickeys in the marketplace that it is easy to be swamped by information on what you need, what is nice to have.. and what is a Kindle anyway?
I am a recent convert to gadgets. Until about 3 years ago I saw them as pretentious adornments of wanna-be experts. (Bit harsh maybe?) Today, they rule my world and everywhere I go I make sure I have at least some of my gadgets and gizmos with me.
They give mt he ability to communicate with the world, stay in touch with events, be more professional in training and seminars, provide better services, and to help me pass the time.
This is a run down of the 7 most useful gadgets that I have today. (Okay, 6 that I have and one that I want. (Badly!!)) Which brings us top the other problem of gadgets, they DO tend to be a bit addictive…
1. The Blackberry(Not the iPhone mind you!)
I am part of the blackberry crowd, not the iPhone crowd. What does that mean? Well, I use it for business not for recreation. Same goes with LinkedIn and Facebook as I see it. (Actually, I don’t really GET Facebook to be honest)
Since I got my blackberry it has transformed my life. I arrive at work ready to go, having caught up with overnight emails, news releases and postings to the web site.
At any time I am able to check through what’s going on with a particular project or theme within the company, as well as having read through my daily digest of news, blogs and “brain food”. (Word of the day etcetera)
I can’t live without this thing today, it is as invaluable to my work life as it is to my social networking life. My only hope is that RIM and others will continue to innovate and to bring new applications into the market that I can use with it.
2. My Canon PowerShot A570IS 7.1MP Digital Camera
Okay, so I’m not a great photographer. (Or even a good one) But I do take this thing everywhere with me. Why? Because you never know what you are going to want to recall for future.
Today, I have a great digital catalog of shots of courses I have run, seminars where I spoke, clients I have come to be very close to, companies and their installations (approved of course) as well as shots of the surrounding scenery and the cities where they were located.
It is hard to think of a time when I won’t be traveling so much. But, that doesn’t mean I should take my regular trips around the world for granted. So a while ago I started to record them. Europe, the UK, the USA, Latin America, the Middle East. All fantastic locations, all unique, and now all recorded easily. (And loaded to Picassa mainly!)
3. Kindle(One that I want)
Okay – this thing has really set me on fire and I really want one. But between Amazxon being sold out, and the fact that I don’t currently live in the USA, it is a pipedream.
Why do I want one? No more carrying books around!
Imagine having ready access to a searchable, readable, and markable library of 200 reference books for client management, engagement, and functional specialties? And without the back pain of carrying books around!
The added ability to have my favorite newspapers and magazines in there (as well as my regular blogs) means that I am sold on this. (I am posting a separate review later)
4. iPod
Why the iPod as a business accessory? For me it was easy. I travel. I travel a lot. More than I should do. This means long amounts of time on planes, where it is pretty hard to keep working all the time, in airports, on trains, and sometimes as a passenger in cars.
So I use the iPod to wile away the moments listening to great music, watching videos, listening to the Stephen Covey audio books (and other Audiobooks from Red Audio) and generally trying to feed my mind on things other than a steady stream of business information. I would be dead of boredom without this little lifesaver.
5. Logitech QuickCam Ultra Vision
Skype changed the way I communicate with the world. This device made it possible to extend that.
This is the best webcam I have ever owned. Background light adjustment, sensitive microphone, great vision quality, good management of the “connection speed” issues, and an easy to use and easy to set up technological device – means this is a no-brainer for me.
This web conference tool comes with me everywhere, and at all times now I can fire up my Skype system and have a web conference with anybody in the world. (who’d a thunk it?)
6. Logitech 2.4 GHz Cordless Presenter
This thing is a lifesaver. (Yes, I’m a fan of Logitech)
Easy USB adapter lets you plug into your PC and change slides while wandering around the room. Add this to the pointer and black screen functions and it is another vital device that I would not be without. I had a training course the other day without it and it was only then I realized how much I depended on it.
really, do yourself a favor with this one. Great stuff!
7. Logitech V20 Notebook Speakers
Another great gadget and backpack filler for me. Great for presentations, USB powered (again), good sound quality and a wonderful way to present small videos and training tools to my courses where ever I am in the world. Another one I don’t leave home without.
We are still only new in the Blogosphere, but already we have picked up a lot of traffic and seem to be drawing a lot of interest from many quarters. great stuff!
What we thought might be interesting is to post on the technologies, programs and blogs that we have used continually to get us to this point, and what we are planning to use to take us to the next steps. Most of these are free, Web 2.0 type technologies, but there are a few that we have paid (willingly) for.
1. Blogger - I don’t really get into the functional debates regarding Blogger versus WordPress etcetera. For me, I have found Blogger to be an excellent tool, one that is versatile, able to be easily modified, and (using the “Layouts”) very easy to modify. If you are going to start blogging, then I really suggest you look at Blogger as a platform.
2. BloggerBuster.com – Great site. Came across it a while ago when I was trying to get the whole template thing worked out. Borrowed some stuff from there, and I continually put their tips, techniques and advice into practice. Again, if you are going to get into Blogging, the check out this invaluable resource.
3. Zoho - What did I ever do without an online word processor? Just one year ago I was happy wandering along in desktop land with my version of word, then I came across this in an internet search.
Absolutely changed the way I work! Today ALL of my documents are backed up on Zoho, all of my reports are there, I write the first drafts of my posts there and I am starting to use other elements of the service as well. For example, I am dead keen to learn about their project management software and will probably be starting a project there shortly.
If (when?) I ever go into business for myself Zoho will probably be my office productivity suite of choice.
4. Gmail – What can you say about Gmail that hasn’t already been said? great program, lots of storage, the ability to send from other email addresses, the labels, groups and uploads and so much more. Again, this is my email choice, I am off desktop software for email right now, and as long as I always have my blackberry or an Internet connection there will be no need for me to use desktop email again.
5. Blackberry – I am a new convert to the world of mobile working. And I will probably never own a normal telephone again. (What’s normal anyway?)
Today, instead of newspapers, my day starts checking out Google ne news on the BB, then I go to my Gmail and run through the recent emails that need urgent attention, then I spend some time running through some of the blogs that I read regularly, then maybe a few searches.
All the while I am getting ready for work, going through the morning routine, and by the time I arrive at the office I am caught up on everything, I have already initiated the days actions, and I am ready to take on the world!
I also am starting to use it for mobile blogging. Not too sure how this is going to work out as I haven’t been able to work it through yet – but if I am able to get started and it works out like I think it will – then the blackberry becomes my “way of doing business”.
6. LinkedIn – Another recent discovery and one that I can’t do without anymore. My network is now pretty large, and I regularly get contacts from peopole I haven’t spoken to in years! (That alone makes it worth while) But the killer app on LinkedIn for me is the ability to do reaearch there.
Many of our posts come from discussions I have started, or stumbled upon, in the LinkedIn Q&A section. it amazes me that there are so many VERY senior and succesful people who are willing to spend their time trying to provide information of value to other people. Fantastic resource that has helped me to get a new perspective on the nature of consulting, and on the nature of people in general. I am there daily!
7. Force.com – Great concept, and the AppExchange is another winner from the team at Salesforce.com. I have yet to release anything that we are working on from their but we are progressing well. Our goal is to provide our community with a range of cheap useful small programs that they can use to manage the day-to-day activities in their consultancies. (Stay tuned)
Visionary stuff the Force.com platform. If you are not familiar with it then as a consultant I suggest you start to get familiar with it. It has unrivaled potential for helping you as a company, and in the services you deliver to your clients.
9. iStockphotos.com – One we pay for, and pay for willingly. iStockPhotos.com has a vast range of good photos, illustrations and videos that we often use to emphasis points in our posts, as well as in newsletters.
10. Amazon – (The associates program) Okay, so I have been using this for many years and haven’t really earned much from it. BUT, I do earn enough every three months to buy a book or two using gift certificates, and it does provide additional value for the people who come to the site.
By having lists of readily chosen books, that we have already reviewed, read and recommend means less time for our readers to find what they are looking for. Anyway, thats my thinking.
11. SimplyHired – We use this site as an affiliate program for hosting our job board. If we are really aiming to be “the beating heart fo the consulting industry” then we have to offer more (a lot more) than just opinions and interviews.
So the job board was a natural extension to that. We are pretty happy with what we have, it can be altered and modified easily enough. But we are still thinking that our own board will be necessary one day… (maybe)
Anyways, it has worked well. Our job board is bristling with opportunities and more appear every day. We get a lot of traffic to that part of our site in particular and hopefully there are some good stories starting to come out of there.
12 The Blogs – We read a lot. And every day I find something on one of the blogs I read that intrigues me, challenges my thinking, and drives me (often) to the point where I think I need to write something about it myself.
If you are in consulting, or just in business management generally, then I really recommend any of these to you as real thought provoking blogs:
There are others, like People, Passion and Principles by David Maister, or The Big Four Blog, but it is this collection that I use all the time for trying to work out whats going on in consulting, what the trends are, and what the next wave of technology is going to do to us! (For good or for bad)
13. BusinessWire - Great source for any online journal. You can get to see all of the announcements that are relevant to any industry. And by working through them you can easily piece together many stories about what is happening, who is buying who and why, and who is forging ahead in different areas of the game.
They are press releases – so you need to proceed with caution. Not everything you read is as rosy as it appears. But they provide at least a glimpse into the otherwise clouded world of consulting company management and growth.
14. ConstantContact – We are only just starting to work through all of the elements that we are going to be delivering in the ConsultingHub network that we have started. But it is really starting to develop well. One thing that we will be doing is incorporating regular newsletters into it. Opt-in newsletters delivering news of the community, news of changes to functions and services, and news related to the consulting industry as well. For this we have chosen ConstantContact.
After a while reviewing some of their competitors, we decided that this program was the most user friendly, had great functionality in terms of the java-type interfaces, and appeared to be as ethical in their operations as we hope that we are. So we recommend it fully to you for your newsletter and survey programs.
So that’s where we are at the moment. All of the above sites have contributed to, and continue to contribute, to our growth, our features and our perspectives here. As well as providing us with technology to continue trying to deliver value to our readership.
Of course there is more, a lot more. iGoogle for providing me my daily News feeds and Dilbert cartoons, Google News for providing me with regular alerts relating to the consulting industry and the major players in it, Digg for allowing people to bookmark our site and our feeds, Feedburner for allowing us to track subscriptions, and to provide additional functionality to the blog, Google Analytics – allowing us to be able to track the traffic to our sites… and so on.
In advertising we are grateful to LinkShare and of course Google Adwords and Adsense, Google custom search…. etc. The list goes on, but I think I have mentioned all of the main ones.
At the heart of it all is the unrelenting belief that consulting is a noble calling. The drive that enables people to work extraordinarily long hours, make great sacrifices and deliver monumental changes – comes from one basic principle. The drive to improve a clients condition in some way or other.
When we meet clients they often have a problem, and when we leave them, if we are doing our stuff right, they have improved in some (often measurable) fashion. You can’t get better job satisfaction than that!
I picked up Leadership by Tom Peters in an airport during a recent flight across the Atlantic. Just something to read on the plane of course…
And in 15 short hours (short – believe it or not) I read through this book, and immediately set about trying to use what it contained in my career.
Tom Peters is, without a doubt, the most refreshingly unique speaker and guru-type in the world of management today. (Without a doubt) His writing always challenges you, but this book more than any other really grabbed me.
As always, he is to the point, concise, and does not waste words. For example, he makes the statement (several times) that you cannot force change – people cannot make corporations change – what you can do is “awaken their latent talents” and the only way that you can do this is through OPPORTUNITY.
This was a revelation for me! Cutting through countless books and texts on change manmagement he cut straight to the core. Give them opportunity, and they will rise to the occasion. It immediately struck a chord with my own personal experiences.
But this is only part of it. His 51 points about what a leader is and what a leader does would provide a fantastic template for anybody within the consulting industry (specifically) or for our many clients. He ahs a few pouints about Women in management that are beyond what you normally hear, and they make perfect sense.
All women I have ever seen in the sales roles, particularly in Service and Technology sales, DO A FANTASTIC JOB! His explanations of why left me wanting to do more in this aprticular area.
Many of the themes in his book are now finding their way into my own consulting work that I do every day, and I reckon that once you read this you will want to do the same. Over the next few weeks we are working on a range of themes that started out this book, and that we have already taken into our client organizations. (With great effect I might add!)
So regardless of whether you ARE a leader, or if you WORK WITH industry leaders – this book will provide you with concise and direct information that you will be able to apply to your career immediately. I could not recommend it any higher!!
In my youth (those were the days!) I became quite hooked up on a lot of the literature that was out there relating to how to sell.
And… I love to sell, I particularly love to sell services. And more particularly – I love to sell services in the < 500k range.
Because it takes less time to get to a decision (normally) – and – because at that level the opportunities are not always “found” – they are created! (Good healthy fun stuff)
Selling embodies a lot of what is GREAT about the consulting business. You get to meet people with a similar mindset that you have, particularly if you enjoy your field, you get to excite them with the possibilities of what you are doing, and hopefully – you get to sell them something that will improve their condition as a company.
It wasn’t until only in the last 8 years that I finally realized that a lot of it was focussed on selling myself! The majority of early books I read on sales were about developing a personal brand, maintaining the pipeline for a one or two person firm, and building relationships based on personal competency.
If you want to develop a successful service consultancy, then you need to be selling a lot more than just you! (Or the guys that you have hired who (strangely) are a lot like you)
You need to be developing the pipeline and managing the engagement size to support a team of consultants in high yield engagements.
At that level there are a lot of factors,(a heck of a lot), but one of the issues that many of the books don’t tell you is that the 50K to 500K market space (in my experience) is a numbers game!
Supporting a team of tens of consultants needs, first and foremost, a professional sales and HR team. One to create the opportunities and one to fill them with talented individuals.
Pipelines for services
The entry point for your services pipeline is networking and developing leads. This is an entire skill set unto itself and one that we won’t go into here. But siuffice to say, you need to be GREAT at picking up leads.
Published RFI’s (Requests for information), cold calls, marketing funnels, conferences, public training courses – the list goes on.
You should expect (based on my own experiences) to be able to turn around 40% of your active leads into “Warm Leads”. What’s a Warm Lead? One who will accept a quotation from you.
Warm leads are funny things. They can go cold for dozens of reasons, some of which you have no control over. But the most important issue with Warm Leads is for you to make sure that they are really ready to become a warm lead.
This is another of those unwritten rules regarding sales. “No” doesn’t mean “No” forever… It just means “No” right now. However, if you get a “No” because you tried the hard sell, made your prospect feel uncomfortable, or tried to rush them without convincing them of the need for whatever you are offering – then it could be a “No” forever!
So now we have some Warm Leads, your goal now is to convert those into contracts. My experience (again) tells me that a conversion rate of around 30% is pretty standard. Should you do better – of course! But this is a ratio I have observed a lot.
So if you started with 100 leads, then 40 of them would become Warm Leads. At a 30% conversion rate 12 of these would turn into Contracts.
Of these 12, you can be 97% sure that they will convert into money in the bank. But even here things can go awry. For the sake of this post we will say 100% make it through.
If you are at $30K average revenue for each Contract then you have $360K revenue from this batch of leads. If your profit margin is 20% then your profit would be $72K.
Your challenges now are in 2 dimensions. Improving conversion rates, and improving time to revenue. (There are a whole heap of other challenges around increasing yield rates and leverage – but we will deal with that another time)
Some thoughts on Conversion Rates
And so on… Again this is a large scale theme and one with a (heck of a) lot of issues to be reviewed. All of which we will try to look at another time.
Time to revenue can be dealt with by looking at a lot of the same issues. However, instead of asking “how can we do it better”, you need to ask “how can we do it faster”.
This means strategies to:
And so on… Another BIG area. One of the things you might have noticed is that I talk a lot about strategies and not skills. Why? Because we are talking about a sales TEAM, not a sales person.
Each person within the TEAM will need to have the required skills to make this happen. And, the TEAM will need to be managed, directed, focused and incentivized in a controlled and systemic manner.
We need to get to consistent positive outcomes, consistently improving conversion rates and times, and consistently higher revenues – regardless of the environment!
This takes a TEAM, and it takes SYSTEMS, not just sweat and hope.
So What? Sounds complex, why can’t I just work on selling? After all that’s what I do best!
There is another angle here (of course). If we can get a pretty solid understanding of our conversion rates, and our time to revenue – then we can predict the future!
Our pipeline can be forecast out in front of us based on active leads, telling us what our expected revenues will be, and giving us a lot of power over the direction of our company.
More than anything else – being able to forecast revenue gives us something additional – inherent value! Forecastable (is that a word?) revenue, if it is accurate, gives a prospective buyer or investor an idea of the earning potential of the company – and therefore an idea of its worth.
In his booklet on Leadership, Tom Peters makes the statement that Leaders create their own Market Space.
YouTube, Wal-Mart, Salesforce.com, SAP, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Apple are all examples of leaders who have created their own market space where none existed. Companies who have had phenomenal success from line extensions are much harder to find.
This is a short list of Leaders in consulting who are creating new and intriguing market spaces, some are doing so off the back of other innovations – but we still see this as market creating because they are “first movers” in their areas.
Astadia - carving out a niche in on-demand software services is not so difficult today. The world is on fire with interest in SaaS applications, so consultants are pushing against an open door.
But part of the reason why is because Astadia picked up the ball several years ago when nobody was working in this space. Back when Salesforce.com was still seen as a curiosity by some, and virtually unknown to most.
Astadia CEO Ernie Riddle has had the vision to bring the company to a position where they hold a leadership position in the field. (Having been the ones to define this market space originally)
They have recently secured $7 million in additional funding from Kodiak Venture Partners for organic growth, validating their vision and focus, they have a prescence in the USA and Europe, they are the biggest partner of Salesforce.com and they have a large number of applications on the Appexchange.
Astadia were way ahead of the curve on this one. They continue to grow through a combination of Salesforce.com training, building and distributing niche AppExchange products, and providing SaaS consultancy work for their clients globally.
Meridium - This company is not widely known of outside of its chosen market sector of physical asset management. Asset maintenance has been awash with point solutions for performance, and even their own brands of ERP systems. (EAM systems)
Yet amid this cacophony of solutions, company founder Bonz Hart saw a need for a system that would combine ALL point solutions in a seamless platform, one that would sit on the back of a companies ERP system, and would be able to make use of the sea of data that transactional systems generate.
And it worked…
Today Meridium counts among its client base some of the world largest asset-intensive organizations including RIO-TINTO, PEMEX, Dow Chemicals, SABIC and Excel Energy. They have an international operation with bases in the USA, Australia and the Persian Gulf, and they continue to generate a healthy pipeline of new sales and repeat work.
VRWorkplace – a consultancy founded to assist other companies to take full advantage of Virtual Worlds like Second Life.
Although a new venture, founder Dave Elchoness has a passionate and contagious vision of virtual societies where companies are able to beat the tyranny of distance and conduct “face to face” meetings with clients all over the world.
The potential is breathtaking, the reality has yet to be realized. We wish him well as a Leader creating new market spaces.
WSP Environment – The Environment as a fertile area for service consulting has been an obvious choice for well over a decade.
But it was Brad Blundell, MD of WSP Environment who cracked the code on how to make it a growing and successful venture.
At the base a well oiled machine serving High volume, low cost works at high quality, at the top a recognised brand that is called upon for high profile work such as establishing the carbon footprint at national levels, and in the middle a slew of innovative approaches such as Energy Efficiency services hitting niche markets with astounding accuracy.
Acquisitions of Environmental Strategies Consulting in the USA, along with three acquisitions in Australia, give WSP Environment the capability to support clients in Europe, the Asia Pacific, and into the Americas. A truly global Environmental consulting brand poised to reap the benefits of increased awareness throughout the world.
A very short list of companies that have come up under our radar. All are forging ahead in areas where nobody else is, or they are leaders in a space that they themselves opened. A testament to their vision and courage.
What’s next? There are avenues that are screaming out for leadership either in terms of innovative products, services or business models. Leveraging data sources, Web 2.0 consulting, virtual outsourcing, and new ways to deliver old services.
Creating new market space is always fraught with risk, and we salute those who have tried and won the day. Who realy knows what tomorrow will bring.
Yahoo was great until Google gave “search” a make-over, CRM was huge until Salesforce.com sold the message that on-demand was the best way to deliver it, and telephones was a saturated market – until the iPhone.
One of the blogs that I read regularly is Alan Mathers’ (no relation) e-Government@Large. It is always filled with pretty unique insights and thoughtful points of view, but this time one of his posts really caught my attention.
Web 2.0 applications continue to draw huge crowds for social networking, (MySpace & Facebook) sharing videos and photos, (Flickr and YouTube) professional networking,(LinkedIn) information sharing, (Blogs and Wiki’s) and even to create alternate lives. (Second Life)
What Alan touched on, very well I thought, was that there are “armies” of people out there who work at updating these applications regularly. Adding links, information and posting items to be a part of their own news-feed.
Yet the corporate world seems to have missed the boat on this issue altogether. Alan looked at how Governments could tap into this emerging technological area to get greater communication and access to information.
It was a fascinating insight into how Governments could transform the way they deal with information and other issues and it got me thinking…. How could consultancies use these programs?
There are lots of opportunities, either for their own companies, or as a value added area they could add to their service delivery portfolios.
Networks
LinkedIn came first to mind, and for a number of reasons.
One of the initial thing that I thought of was supplying clients with CV’s. In the early stages of most engagements there is a need to prove the calibre of your people. CV’s are supplied of senior people showing their capabilities etc.
If all the firms CV’s were on LinkedIn then an entire step in the initial get-to-know-you phase would be a lot easier.
Clients and prospects could peruse through the CV’s at their leisure, going into whatever level of detail they wanted to. Also… Consultants would have their client recommendations there online for prospects to see readily, and to reference check as they wanted to.
Imagine the possibilities of being able to point your prospects to links on the Web, where they could see the capabilities of your people as well as the references they have.
A second area where LinkedIn would provide value is through the creation of closed networking groups, just for the company employees.
Consultants, developers and sales people could sift through the company “register”, checking the backgrounds of their work mates, and creating connections to whomever they pleased. Giving them the ability to call on expertise and knowledge from within the company extremely easily.
This is, of course, only the tip of the iceburg. Job ads for internal roles could be placed easily, and through HR making their own connections they could easily be bought to the attention of the right group of people within the company.
The possibilities are staggering! Particularly when you work for one of the majors like IBM, Accenture or Sapient.
Information sharing
iGoogle is a great product, and one that could be very useful for corporate communications. Blogs for company announcements, press releases and to notify of policy changes could be tied to a consultants iGoogle home page or even through the Google reader, to make sure that people had ready access to relevant information for their roles.
Departmental blogs could built and used to communicate information, or just to generate interest in an initiative or project within the company. A classic would be regular updates on project progress, and on new developments in the sales pipeline.
For growing consultancies departmental blogging could help alleviate the anxiety people feel once the company gets too big for them to get the sort of information from water-cooler conversations that used to tell them what was going on in the company.
Wiki-world
Wiki’s are another area of potential for all companies, but particularly for consultancies. The first thought was as a place were the corporate “track record” could be held.
A set of confidential (not for public view) entries talking “frankly” about all of the clients that the company has had. What they bought, who the buyers were, what the benefits were to them, why they stopped buying (maybe) and links to relevent information about that company or industry.
Not quite the CRM vision, but a very informative tool for sales, consultants and developers alike. Being able to research the company history with a client, the wins and losses, and relevent information about the sector and company could be the difference between an engagement or a passing interest only.
Wiki’s have a lot of additional potential. But the basis of them, as with other Web 2.0 tools, would be that they were edited and updated by anyone in the organization who wanted to.
Some other wiki potential areas:
And the list goes on….
The fact that almost zero consultants are using YouTube as a marketing platform amazes me. Loading videos of conferences, training sessions, marketing spots and ads, or even of TV spots, would make them available for permalinks to the companies own site – or to be searched by the public.
There is a lot more to this, and Alan has revisited the theme a number of times on e-Government@Large.
But, even though the potential for consultancies to benefit from these applications is pretty big, there would be equally large-scale opportunities for our clients.
Some companies provide Google Analytics consulting, Ajax programming and a few other Web 2.0 ish services. But in general it seems to be a sparsely populated market space, just waiting to be created. And here is the rest of it.
Consulting is probably the most talent dependent industry in the world today. And there’s bad news… Talent is in short supply!
For any consultancy, regardless of whether it is focused on services, technology or product delivery – the key to sustainable long term success will be the companies ability to find, develop and keep – talented individuals. This is a change to the HR departments of most consultancies that we would be familiar with.
Generally staffed by people who would be more at home in the Third Reich than the early twenty-first century, they often become the companies enforcers of employee policies, and the keepers of timesheet / expenses and billing data. (Though not the final users of it)
This means they are the people you hear from when:
I once (and only once) raised a grievance in a company I worked for a long time ago. By the end of the process my issues had been forgotten, I had been accused of a range of things that most dictators don’t get accused of, AND I had my character maligned to boot!
At the end of the conversation I left with my issue in the distance and wondering if I was going to keep my job!!!! What a wonderful way to find, develop and keep talent!!!
So if the modern consulting HR department is going to evolve into this Utopian view of talent scouts – what sort of steps will be needed?
1. HR isn’t payroll. Payroll is a mechanical function suited more to the accounting department than HR. Sounds obvious, but it is a gigantic change for many companies.
2. Tight control over recruiting standards, guidelines and policy.
Don’t outsource the whole thing, make sure HR is the guiding light, and make sure the guidelines are realistic – e.g. Not designed to make finding the ideal candidate impossible.
HR are not Enforcers – they are the keepers of the rules, the ones who set policy in line with strategy, and the auditors or policy effectiveness.
But they are not enforcers.
Line managers are enforcers.
Part of their role, part of their relationships, and part of how they maintain standards on their teams.
4. The Keepers of the Talent Development policies.
A) how to develop “sub-prime” hires, giving flexibility to the organization (especially in lean resource times)
B) managers of sucession planning. Through guidelines, coaching / training structures and performance monitoring.
C) capability improvers. Personalized training in line with corporate trajectories, highlighting under-nourished talent – or discovering hidden talent pools, building flexible training plans for Talent awakening.
D) keepers and auditors of the employee performance management system. In particular – the employee evaluation systems! Ensuring fairness, candor, alignment with corporate development / vision and values.
5) HR LISTEN! HR need to be the adjudicators of disciplining procedures. They are NOT the companies representatives – they are the guardians of the policies and procedures.
6) They are constant networkers!
Think of what recruitment consultancies do. They network, continually. They are aiming to have a pool of medium to high talent available to them at a moments notice.
Why shouldn’t we expect this of the HR departments?
7) Focus on Benefits. HR are the keepers of policies of renumeration and (more importantly) reward / recognition and retention.
They know that good talent is hard to find, so they make sure that the company can keep the good ones they have.
A) as a corollary to this, they also help to highlight the continually under-performing talent that are dragging down the talent pool. Through unbiased reflection on performance, contribution and improvement – they become the talent compass for the organizations leaders.
HR innovate… They are always looking for new and improved methods and technologies to find, develop and keep.
For some HR departments, this is not news. It is a statement of how they do business today. For others, it is a gigantic leap from the nasty HR guy in the corner who’s job seems to be “pay them” and “keep them in line”.
I cut my teeth in consulting during the early ninties. Although starting out in Australia I soon started to deliver services in Latin America, Europe and North America. At the time the internet was pretty new still (I did have an email account) and some of the more traditional ways of marketing were still big news. One of these was training.
The concept was pretty straight forward. Run a public or in-house course, and use the enthusiasm generated to try to win the next step in the sales process. Simple, effective, and a lot of fun besides. I used to be able to boast a conversion rate of around 30% – 40% depending on the theme. But does this still apply today?
There were a few rules that you needed to follow, people were paying to attend this “marketing event” after all and it couldn´t be too commercial or you were going to get nowhere.
But, this was the way things were. It has been a long time since I have been able to actively deliver public training courses as part of a sales process, and many of the projects that I am involved in today are long sell / high value propositions where training courses are part of the deliverables.
So we took our question to a couple of experts to take the temperature of the marketplace and to see if training is still the marketing tool that it once was.
Barry Goldberg is a Executive Coach at Marshall Goldsmith Partners, a network of top level executive coaches. “I do not know if this is as effective as it used to be. Years ago I worked with John Naisbitt. Members of our staff would go speak at conferences and simply take out our calendars afterwards. But I think you need to have a very big book to get away with that now. Alas, we live in an age of celebrity.”
“When I do public seminars, I try not to look at it as a lead generation event. Instead, I set them up to be profitable opportunities to really benefit a group from my target audience. If I do a GREAT day’s work that shows them what I am capable of delivering AND make a profit, then it is part of brand building and lead generation over time. “
“Where most of these I have seen and attended fell flat was that the presentation was not one that left the attendees feeling committed or even willing to talk to the presenter further. It is important to recognize that not only have you done a lot of work to get people into the room. THEY have taken time out and paid to be there. That makes it up to YOU to show them why they should come ask for more.”
James Patsalides sits on the Board of Directors at SNEC-PMI, an organization dedicated to the project management industry. He concurs, “would add that public training courses are as much about establishing your credentials as an “expert” in your field as they are about developing direct leads. So, if you think about it as a strategic marketing effort – focused on establishing your “brand”, perhaps the economics make more sense? It should be part of your marketing mix, but not the whole marketing mix”
So, the advice seems to be that; YES training can still provide a valuable part of your marketing mix. But times ahve changed and it is definitely not the valuable tool that it once was. BUT, it is still a revenue generator, and as times change so do we. What we once termed “paid marketing” is now a valuable tool for building a personal brand, not just for selling.
Rik de Jong nowadays works as a Project Director Organisation Development at Thyssen Krupp as the Director of Organizational Development. But in his past lives, like many of us, he worked in the consulting industry. His final advice caps it off. “Results come slow, first reaction after 2 months, last reaction after a year – patience is needed.”
We recently put some questions to a panel of experts related to virtual outsourcing. We were thinking about the impacts of SaaS on the IT outsourcing world.
During this conversation Dave Elchoness blew us all away with some thinking on real virtual worlds and how they could revolutionize the way we work in the consulting game.
Dave is the Founder & CEO at VRWorkplace, Inc. An experienced attorney and HR consultant, he founded VRWorkplace to help geographically distributed companies, educational institutions, associations, organizations, and social networks overcome the traditional obstacles that arise due to lack of interpersonal connectedness and benefit from virtual worlds.
His insights are refreshing and unique, and it is easy to see why he is one of the leading thinkers on how to take advantage of emerging technologies such as virtual worlds. We invited him back for 5 Quick Questions related to the emerging virtual workplace, and how this could affect consultants throughout the world.
1) Second Life has really taken off with the “facebook” crowd as a social phenomena, we are also starting to see the rise of Second Life entrepreneurs emerging out of the crowds. But, what use could this tool be for the managing consulting discipline? Are we looking at a place where virtual offices will be established, or could it go much farther than that? (E.g Strategic learning games in a virtual world?)
We are still in the very early days of virtual worlds technology. At present, there are many virtual worlds out there – many for kids and teens, some geared for adults. There are virtual reality type environments that are meant to be private i.e. inside a company’s firewall. There are environments that are generally publicly accessible with areas that may be limited to those on an access list.
Second Life is public, but companies have been using it for various internal purposes but limiting access, generally to isolated private islands on the Second Life grid. These islands are not inside their own corporate firewall, but maintained by Linden Lab along with the public spaces inside of Second Life.
With that as background – Second Life and other virtual worlds and environments will doubtless be a tool for the managing consulting discipline. Virtual worlds allow for immersive, as if in person interactions in a 3D space.
Meetings can happen there. Office hours can be spent there. Socializing can happen in virtual space. All of this can be achieved without travel or delay and essentially spontaneously. So imagine meeting a client on the other side of the world within a virtual environment. You could meet in nearly any sort of atmosphere you could dream of.
For example, my VRWorkplace sim in Second Life has both conventional office park like spaces (e.g. meeting spaces, offices, amphitheater) but also a coffee house and amusement park. This was done very deliberately. In a virtual environment we can be wherever we like. So, short answer, yes – virtual spaces can be used as a tremendous tool for management consultants.
A few steps further: Imagine building within the virtual world, a prototype, or a replica of an existing structure, or a 3D model of an existing process or practice. With this interface, we can virtually examine a flow “from all sides.”
Now, imagination and creativity. Think of a brainstorming session inside of a virtual world, not in a typical office building but in an underwater conference room with fish swimming past and swans above. I built one of this on my sim to prompt lively discussion, imagination, and creativity (for those who appreciate the uniqueness of such a space.)
Last points: Air travel reductions, pollution reductions, reductions in disruption to work and family life. If 10% of Accenture’s travel expense could be saved by using a virtual world-type interface, that would be something, wouldn’t it?
Now on to what can be done currently: Voice communication, text communication, streaming media, powerpoint. Some of these things don’t need to happen inside of virtual worlds – BUT – as the interface changes from the keyboard and screen to something else, being able to share these technologies in the 3D space will be just like “being there.”
I know many people who have offices in Second Life as their primary business location (if not only location.) I lease space, consult on how to use space, build etc.
As for training, consider a piece of “land” in Second Life that can be an obstacle course one day, or an office space the next. Training can be that versatile. Games can be developed. A tracking system that measures achievement of certain goals or results within Second Life can be developed. You can truly make a game out of applying best practices – or adopting strategy.
2) Do you think this is going to be something that will provide competitive advantage? Or merely a curiosity?
I think within the next several years, virtual reality will take hold as a way to bridge distance, promote interpersonal bonding, and allow people more freedom and flexibility in their lives. We can both work at home AND spend more time with our colleagues around the world within a virtual environment.
By the way, a virtual environment on your computer screen also allows for what I call the “hallway meeting” in a way that nothing else can. We know that real work gets done in the hallway or when someone stops by your office – a “drive by” we used to say in my law firm days. Well, keep your virtual environment on your screen for certain agreed upon hours of the day and we can replicate that even for people working on the opposite sides of the world from eachother. From my desk in the US, my India colleague can “run into me” in the hallway.
For proof, in my view, that this is not a passing fad consider the investments being made by IBM, Cisco, Sun and others in virtual worlds. Also, the China Recreational District (CRD) a tremendous effort in China that I understand intends to bring 150 million Chinese into virtual worlds by 2010. http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/2007/11/a-close-look-at.html.
3) Are there any first movers in there in the area of consulting already? Or is it an area that remains wide open? (Beyond using it for IBM style meetings)
A number of consulting companies have become engaged. Two that come to mind immediately are Accenture and PA Consulting. IBM, Cisco, Sun and many other technology companies are engaged. Wipro was the first major India player to engage (but others are sure to follow.) As for what they’re doing – much of this is private, but it is well-known that IBM has upwards of 50 islands in Second Life, some of which are private for all sorts of business uses. Many companies, including Cisco, have done job fairs in Second Life. Manpower is in SL as is Kelly Services.
That said, we are in the very early days. I am trying my best to become a pioneer in the field.
4) You have mentioned before that there are several virtual worlds that look like coming online within the next year or so. How will this affect things? Will it make virtual consulting more likely do you think? Could there be a new virtual world that is like LinkedIn is for professional networking?
The number of virtual worlds will certainly increase in the next year. There will be both public and private worlds hitting our radar. I suspect that this will cause existing players like Second Life to improve their product including stability, ease of use, etc rapidly.
There is no question that as virtual worlds becomes more mainstream as a concept, there will be more virtual working, consulting, training, recruiting, etc. It’s just a matter of time.
LinkedIn and other social networks will get involved heavily in virtual worlds. What is more obvious than taking a relationship started in text in LinkedIn to a new level inside a virtual world boardroom, coffee house, etc.?
I am actually having two LinkedIn related networking events at my Second Life sim, VRWorkplace, one on January 17th at 6pm PT and the second on January 24th at 11am PT. I’ve invited all of the members of the LinkedIn “Virtual Worlds” group that I founded and moderate as well as those who expressed interest in response to a question I asked in the Q&A section.
5) Presumably the big players will enjoy the usual advantage that comes with size. However, do you think there is a place for innovative smaller companies to carve out a niche rapidly? And if so, then what final advice would you give to small consultancies looking for that edge?
Actually, I think smaller companies are better positioned than larger ones to benefit from virtual worlds today. The cost of entry is manageable and smaller companies are generally better able to take a plunge into a new paradigm more quickly than larger ones.
This is a business I’m passionate about. Anyone interested in trying this out should contact me and I will help them every step of the way. Dave can be found on his LinkedIn profile or on his email address dave@vrworkplace.com
DUBLIN, Ireland–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c78241) has announced the addition of Open Source Market Forecast: Linux to their offering.
This report analyses and forecasts Linux software and service revenue opportunities in enterprises and public sector organisations, as well as among individual consumers. We look at both the server and client markets, but exclude the embedded Linux market.
The market for Linux products and services will grow from $2.4 billion in 2007 to $7.7 billion in 2012. Growth will slow down from 36% in 2008 to 17% in 2012. The revenue figures are small compared to other operating system (OS) markets, but the impact of Linux on other OSs will be much more significant than these figures would lead you to believe.
Linux service revenues will grow faster than Linux software revenues. Services will grow from 77% to 81% of the total Linux market between 2007 and 2012, as Linux use becomes more complex. The server market is the main segment of the overall Linux market. This segment accounts for 83% of the market in 2007. However, by 2012, Linux’s importance as a client OS will have grown and, as a result, server-based use of Linux software and services will reduce to 81% of the overall market.
High Customer Satisfaction and Ability to Provide Services Across the SAP Implementation Life Cycle Contribute to Placement
BANGALORE, India–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Infosys Technologies Limited (NASDAQ:INFY), a world leader in consulting and information technology services, has been recognized as a leader among SAP implementation providers, in a December 2007 independent report issued by independent analyst firm Forrester Research.
The Forrester report, entitled The Forrester Wave: SAP Implementation Providers, Q4 2007, states that “Infosys has the best pre-implementation process consulting expertise of any other pure-play Indian provider, and comes closest to successfully competing against the legacy multinationals in this area.”
“Infosys’ approach toward optimizing business processes enables us to deliver a high level of value to clients. We are pleased that our clients have reported high satisfaction scores in the report,” said Chandra Shekar Kakal, vice president and global head for enterprise solutions, Infosys Technologies.
In addition to citing Infosys’ strength in SAP implementation services, the report attributes the company’s standing to its practice having “grown by 70% every year during the past five years,” noting that “Infosys’ SAP practice is aligned along verticals to ensure that clients get the benefit of its deep vertical process expertise.”
For more information and an executive summary of Infosys’ standing on The Forrester Wave: SAP Implementation Provides, Q4 2007) report, visit http://forrester.com/Research/Document/Excerpt/0,7211,44268,00.html.
Leading ECM SI Expands in Response to Market Demand
SANTA CLARA, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–CIGNEX, the leading Systems Integrator for open source technology based content management solutions today announced that it had opened an ECM consulting centre in Edison, New Jersey. CIGNEX has opened this centre to better meet the needs of its rapidly growing customer base in the East Coast. This is the company’s third consulting centre, after its world-wide headquarters in Santa Clara CA, and the 100 person centre in Ahmedabad, India.
“In the last couple of months alone, we have begun new engagements at Medco, Sesame Street and Hunter College. Given the response we are getting from this geography, we believe it is imperative for us not just to have a ‘presence’ but a full fledged consulting centre so that we can better serve our customers,” said Mr. Srini Sridhar, the SVP of Worldwide Consulting at CIGNEX.
The company has roped in Bob Stein, a 20 year veteran of Verizon as Account Director. In his role as Account Director, Mr. Stein will take responsibility for all of CIGNEX’s East Coast clients and for the consulting operations in Edison, New Jersey. Prior to CIGNEX, Bob managed several large IT initiatives in support of business objectives most recently as Senior Manager of Web Development in support of all of Verizon Business product sales. Prior to Verizon, he was with the United States Air Force as a software developer and communications officer.
“The East Coast with its focus on financial services and media has been at the forefront of adopting leading edge open source platforms,” said Mr. Navin Nagiah, CEO of CIGNEX. “Given our growth and reputation in providing open source ECM solutions, a substantial east coast presence with both sales and consulting was the logical next step for the business,” he added.
WALNUT CREEK, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Environmental engineering and consulting firm Brown and Caldwell announced today that Ane Deister has joined the firm as Vice President, Water Resources and Executive Services. Deister, who was general manager for the El Dorado Irrigation District, is leading the company’s national initiative on conservation and planning for drought and climate change. She also is working with a number of utility executives and their boards to develop strategic programs.
Deister, who served on the National Drought Policy Commission during the Clinton administration, was recently appointed restoration administrator for the settlement agreement between Friant Water Users Authority and the Natural Resources Defense Council to restore the San Joaquin River. She also served on the California Water Commission, Governor’s Recycled Water Task Force, and the Executive Committee of both the Association of California Water Agencies and Regional Water Authority, where she also served as vice chair. She is a vice president and board member for the Urban Water Institute and on the Board of Trustees for the national AWWA Water Resources Division.
“Ane has excellent insight and experience gained from more than 30 years in public service,” says Cindy Paulson, senior vice president and national water resources practice leader for Brown and Caldwell. “Now in the private sector, she is able to broaden her scope, making her expertise available to many more agencies and municipalities.”
As general manager with EID, Deister led a 300-person organization that provides water, wastewater, recycled water, hydropower, and recreation services to more than 100,000 people in the Sierra foothills northeast of Sacramento. Prior to EID she was the assistant to the GM for Los Angeles-based Metropolitan Water District, which serves more than 18 million people in six counties. She has worked for the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District (Calabasas, Calif.), South Florida Water Management District (West Palm Beach, Fla.), and numerous state and federal agencies.
Established in 1947, Brown and Caldwell is a multi-disciplined environmental engineering and consulting firm. The employee-owned company is headquartered in Walnut Creek, Calif., and employs more than 1,500 people in 45 offices nationwide. Engineering News-Record ranks Brown and Caldwell 48th among the nation’s top 500 engineering firms, 36th among the Top 200 environmental firms, 21st largest in the Water Supply market and 8th largest in the Sewer/Waste market.
Active Delivers Widest Range of Event Management Solutions for Organizations of All Sizes
SAN DIEGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The Active Network, Inc. (Active), a leading provider of application services technology and marketing solutions for community service and participatory sports organizations, today announced that it has acquired RegOnline and WingateWeb, two leaders in the event management software industry. These acquisitions, along with the company’s purchase of Thriva LLC last year, make Active the largest provider of products and services to streamline online event registration and operations for corporations, associations and independent event planners.
RegOnline, based in Boulder, Colo., has more than 60 employees and is a leader in the event registration industry. More than 11,000 meeting and event planners have chosen RegOnline’s simple and flexible online registration services, which can be set up quickly and easily with no start-up or annual costs. Customers include Sony, Hitachi, Raymond James Financial, Burger King and General Mills to name a few.
WingateWeb provides enterprise software solutions to Fortune 500 companies in the IT, medical and financial industries. Its web-based products successfully manage events of up to 20,000 attendees with hundreds of breakout sessions, as well as operations for organizations that hold thousands of events per year. Many of the largest technology companies in the world use WingateWeb’s technology to streamline their customer conferences and other internal events. Based in Lindon, Utah, the company has more than 85 employees and doubled the size of its business in 2007.
“The event management market has been fragmented with numerous small companies offering individual packages. The Active Network is now the de facto leader in this space,” said Alex Barnetson, senior vice president, The Active Network, Inc. “With the acquisitions of RegOnline and WingateWeb, Active can now provide corporations and event planners of all sizes with the most comprehensive selection of event management technology.”
The Active Network provides technology and marketing solutions for event organizers, community organizations and consumer brands that enable and encourage participation. As a result of the acquisitions, RegOnline and WingateWeb customers will have access to a full range of value-added services including global operations, a world-class call center, extensive development resources and marketing expertise. RegOnline and WingateWeb will continue to operate out of their respective offices.
These acquisitions follow Active’s purchase of Thriva LLC last year, whose EventRegister product provides online registration and payment processing for organizations including Stanford University, UCLA, the United Nations, JPMorgan Chase and many others.
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nearly two-thirds of supply chain professionals in the chemicals industry say their companies have no formal processes for identifying and sharing supply chain best practices, according to a study released today by Accenture (NYSE: ACN).
The 2007 Global Chemical Industry Supply Chain Best Practices Study is based on a survey of 400 supply chain professionals in Europe, North America, South America, the Middle-east and Asia. The study is the second in a series focusing on the increasing importance of the supply chain in the chemicals industry; the first study was released in 2005.
While only 37 percent of survey respondents in this year’s survey said their companies have formal processes for sharing best practices, even fewer — 11 percent — said that best practices are documented, translated into standard operating procedures and measured at their company. Even worse, only 4 percent said their companies have captured best practices in one place and made them available to all supply chain professionals within their organization.
“Sharing of best practices has improved over the last two years, but there are still areas for improvement,” said Christopher Lange, study author and a senior executive in Accenture’s Chemicals practice. “While companies have traditionally looked at the supply chain as a way to cut costs, they now look at it as a strategic and financially important part of the business and a way to generate value and revenue. In a competitive global landscape, sharing best practices will be critical to increasing performance.”
The 2007 study results indicate that supply chain professionals are doing better at collaborating and communicating with customers than they were two years ago. For instance, the percent of supply chain professionals who said they collaborate and communicate with customers to make sales forecasts has more than tripled in the past two years, from just 7 percent in 2005 to 24 percent in 2007.
Likewise, supply chain professionals are also improving at collaborating and communicating internally. More than one-third (35 percent) of supply chain professionals in this year’s survey reported robust information-sharing within their company, up from one in five (21 percent) in the 2005 survey. In the critical sales and operations planning areas, more than half (53 percent) of respondents this year said that their business units routinely share data with each other, up from 41 percent in 2005.
The study also found that while supply chain training is more prevalent across the industry today than it was two years ago, supply chain professionals do not think they are getting enough of it. While the number of respondents who said they receive no supply chain training has decreased significantly in the past two years — from 78 percent in 2005 to 11 percent this year — only 29 percent said they are satisfied with their current level of training.
“Companies have invested in improving their supply chain, but if their training is ineffective or informal, their professionals will lack the high level of knowledge and skills to drive value and sustain the changes they’re looking for,” said Lange. “Training is important because it enables supply chain professionals to examine their company’s practices and performance and identify opportunities for improvement.”
Other areas examined in the 2007 study include hiring, procurement, commercial and supply chain interaction, demand planning and supply chain resilience. Additional details on the results are available at www.scmstudies.com.
Methodology
As a follow up to a similar study in 2005, Accenture surveyed 400 chemical industry supply chain professionals at 150 chemical businesses in North America, South America, Europe, Middle-east and Asia. The survey, comprising nearly 390 questions on 22 supply chain topics, was conducted online from January through April 2007, and the results were tabulated in June and July 2007.
DALLAS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–GW Equity, an advisor to closely held and family-owned businesses for mergers, acquisitions, and strategic growth initiatives, announced the sale of its client Isbell Engineering Group (IEG), a Fort Worth-based engineering firm focusing on structural, civil and geotechnical engineering, to Clough Harbour & Associates LLP (CHA), a full service engineering and planning firm based in Albany, New York. The value of the transaction was not disclosed.
The acquisition will extend CHA’s national reach and create a firm with combined 2006 revenues of over $118 million. The combined company’s services will include civil, structural, geotechnical, mechanical, electrical, transportation and environmental engineering; surveying; landscape architecture; technology solutions; planning; and construction services. In addition, CHA will now be able to provide construction materials testing, a well-established aspect of IEG’s business.
The acquisition will result in the addition of 85 staff and three offices to CHA, bringing the firm’s total number of employees to more than 725 and offices to 29 nationwide.
“The union of our two firms will allow both of us to better extend a wide range of professional design and construction services in the growing Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex,” stated Raymond J. Kinley, Jr, chief executive officer of CHA. “The region is experiencing tremendous economic growth, and as such the demand for our services has increased exponentially.”
According to IEG President David Isbell, “Our acquisition by CHA is a testament to IEG’s success and the people who have helped it develop over the past 30 years. This is the next logical step in our efforts to grow our business. We are fortunate that our firm has been locally owned and operated since it was established in 1977, and we are excited to advance to the national level with CHA and to provide a broader range of services.”
Brenen Hofstadter, GW Equity’s lead managing director for the transaction said, “This transaction was possible because the principals involved developed mutual trust. This will go a long way with insuring the success of the combined organization. We are proud to have found the right buyer; this is a win-win transaction.”
“We wished to align our firm with a premier organization and continue to provide our clients with the highest quality service,” added Isbell. “It was important to find a group with the same culture for integrity. We have found the CHA team to be of the highest caliber and we are proud to be joining their organization.”
PRESTON, Va.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has completed its acquisition of Gestalt, LLC, a privately held defense consulting firm based in Camden, New Jersey, that provides mission-support services to the U.S. Department of Defense. Terms of the sale were not disclosed.
Gestalt provides mission-critical command and control systems and solutions that help defense organizations achieve systems interoperability and collaboration, allowing information systems from separate branches of the armed services to share battlefield information in support of joint military operations.
Gestalt also provides services related to modeling and simulation, advanced decision-support technologies, energy-management solutions, and tactical collaborative networks. Its clients include the U.S. Armed Forces, DoD/Joint Forces Command (JFCOM/J7/JNTC), and regional power grid management organizations.
“Accenture and Gestalt joined forces through this acquisition to offer a wide range of services and proven methodologies to defense organizations,” said Eric Stange, managing director of Accenture’s U.S. Defense practice. “From helping prepare our armed forces for combat, to maximizing the efficiency of their supply chain, to energy management, to delivering critical military information from multiple data systems, the capabilities we offer defense clients will help them meet their vital mission goals and achieve high performance.”
Gestalt’s approximately 250 employees are expected to join Accenture’s Public Service operating group as part of Accenture National Security Services. The closing of the Gestalt acquisition follows Accenture’s other recent defense acquisitions, including MAXIM Systems, Inc., and George Group Consulting LLC.
Nelco and PlanSource to Become Part of CoAdvantage Family of Companies, Significantly Increasing CoAdvantage’s Size and Value after 10 Years of Success
ORLANDO, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–CoAdvantage, a leading provider of end-to-end human resource solutions, today acquired two successful businesses — Nelco, Inc., and PlanSource. The acquisitions are expected to significantly increase profits for 10-year-old CoAdvantage, making it one of the top 10 professional employer organizations (PEOs) in the country, with 2007 total projected net revenue of $106 million. The acquisitions will also further the company’s mission to bring value to all stakeholders and will increase internal staff by 56 percent, as well as worksite employees, which total more than 30,000 throughout Florida, by 38 percent. The resulting entity includes two PEOs, a human resource outsourcing (HRO) company, an insurance agency, and a benefits administration software and services company.
CoAdvantage is one of first companies in the human resource services industry to demonstrate a growth strategy — through its HRO and PEO solutions — that effectively meets clients’ needs as they mature. This is especially essential in the current down market when small and medium-sized businesses (SMB) need to eliminate risk and create more financial and human resource efficiencies. CoAdvantage makes it possible for employers to cut costs while, at the same time, providing the best employee benefits possible.
“The acquisition of Nelco and PlanSource will allow us to substantially increase our value proposition to our clients,” said CoAdvantage CEO Dayne Williams. “We will enhance our bundled HR solutions to the small employer by incorporating the strengths of Nelco, while the PlanSource acquisition will provide the necessary software platform to effectively deliver our solution to employers of the mid market.”
Nelco was approached by more than 40 potential buyers. Founder Virginia Dorris — who is retiring — and her daughter, President Dori Rath, chose CoAdvantage because of its commitment to customer satisfaction and desire to retain the location, president and management team.
“Our customers will keep everything they like about Nelco,” said Rath. “We’ve spent decades building Nelco’s excellent reputation. We didn’t want to sell the company to anyone less. We are incredibly pleased with this acquisition.”
“With the Nelco acquisition, we are marrying two of the best PEOs, as far as perception and value in the marketplace, to create one of the top PEOs in the country,” said CoAdvantage PEO President Ben Hewitt. “This gives us the size we need to become a tier-one player and the ability to serve our clients through more efficient and effective methods.”
Both CoAdvantage and Nelco are highly regarded for client service and benefits. Clients will benefit with pricing advantages due to the increased buying power of this larger entity. Additionally, overhead expenses will be reduced due to combined resources.
PlanSource, which will become a wholly owned subsidiary of CoAdvantage, will offer proprietary, dynamic software that fully integrates insurance products and administrative tools, along with pre-defined portfolios of benefit options, to both CoAdvantage clients and insurance brokers. This technology will greatly simplify the procurement, implementation and management of health and benefit plans.
“The success and adoption of CoAdvantage’s HRO product has proven the need for an integrated payroll and benefits solution that eliminates the inefficiencies created by working with multiple vendors,” said Williams. “This is one example of how we continue to enhance products that will remove the unnecessary costs within the payroll, benefits and HR industries.”
“This partnership will allow CoAdvantage to expand service offerings into the SMB market space at an unprecedented rate with a product superior to anything in the market today,” said PlanSource Chief Executive Officer Scott Carver. “There has not been a provider out there that has effectively automated all of the HR processes for small businesses while delivering affordable benefit options. No one else has been able to crack that code and we can.”
Jan 02, 2008 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) BSquare recently announced that it acquired NEC Corp. of America’s Adobe Flash Technology Consulting and Distribution business for an undisclosed sum.
As a result of the transaction, BSquare noted, it is now a worldwide authorized distributor of Adobe Flash Lite software, which supports Adobe Flash Player functionality for mobile and embedded devices. A license is required for any mobile or embedded device that utilizes Flash Lite software. BSquare will license Flash Lite to OEMs building mobile and embedded devices and will also deliver Flash Lite porting, performance-optimization, testing and verification services. In addition, BSquare plans to feature Flash Lite on its DevKit hardware development platforms.
Flash Lite enables OEMs and operators to differentiate their devices with a custom user interface. It also gives end users the ability to access compelling web content such as YouTube videos. Adobe reports that more than 300 million Flash-enabled devices have shipped to date and predicts that over one billion Flash-enabled devices will be available by 2010. The BSquare acquisition includes distribution rights for Adobe Flash ports for popular hardware platforms from Broadcom, Freescale, IBM, Intel, Marvell, NEC, NXP, RMI, and Texas Instruments. BSquare will also acquire NEC’s installed Flash Lite customer base and NEC’s Flash Lite product team.
“This acquisition broadens our product and service offerings in an area of particular interest to OEMs right now, given the increasing popularity of web content such as YouTube on mobile devices. Further, OEMs desire to build compelling user interfaces on devices utilizing Flash authoring tools,” said Brian Crowley, president and CEO, BSquare. “Our engineering services team will performance-optimize Adobe Flash Lite for OEMs building mobile phones, set-top boxes, digital signs and other customer-facing devices. In addition, OEMs within the installed base of Flash customers will benefit from BSquare’s experience and expertise as a distributor of Microsoft Windows embedded licenses. We expect the acquisition to be accretive in fiscal 2008.”
“We anticipate solid growth in embedded sales as OEMs continue to offer more compelling user interfaces and end users demand the ability to view engaging Flash-enabled content,” said Mike Bergeron, Vice President of Business Development at Adobe. “We are pleased to work with BSquare, a highly-regarded embedded device technology expert and distributor, to accelerate the adoption of Adobe Flash Lite in mobile and embedded devices.”
