Business Intelligence on the Web

Since the turn of the century, management has had a growing fascination with “The Dashboard”. A set of metrics and visual representations of performance that allows C-level executives to understand:

- Where the company is going,

- Where it has been, and

- Provide the information to take decisions about where they want it to go.

A recent Aberdeen Group report has highlighted that there has recently been a turn in the way that companies implement Business Intelligence in their Enterprises. This indicates a large swing away from the “build-it” approach, and towards the “buy-it” approach.

For Aberdeen Group this represents not only a swing away from traditional Business Intelligence models, but also that companies are beginning to see the value in outsourcing the BI and IT skills.

In their report, they go on to say, “The current use of traditional information delivery technologies among Best-in-Class organizations will give way to emerging methods within the next 12-24 months, according to survey responses.”

Again, the potential opportunity for consultants here is enormous. Facilitating a company’s transition to a SaaS type BI model, reviewing the business processes underlying the entire data structures, and providing the expertise required to embed the Business Intelligence initiatives.

Regardless of whether your clients are leaning towards off-premise BI or not, there are still areas where you can help them.

- Asses their skill sets for BI – Poor performing companies are three times more likely to be deficient in this area.

- Determine the data sources and the timeframes that information would be required. Sixty percent of poor performing companies do not have information available to them until after one week.

- Embed the use of BI, to do this you will need to make sure that:

o Information is Actionable – relevance is tied to business goals;

o Information is Timely – information must be delivered within a time-frame that provides opportunity to act

o Information is Accessible – knowledge workers and decision makers must be able to grasp the meaning of the information and take advantage of the BI tools.

- Help them establish a BI centre of Excellence – an independent internal organization that represents all departments.

- Beware of Information overload – Ensure the right information is there to facilitate decisions, but avoid paralysis by analysis. Ensure your BI center of excellence makes sure that all measures are useful for optimal decision-making.

- Help them progress toward a self-service BI environment – Get them to a point where end users can reduce their dependence on a central IT function,

Growing areas of SaaS consulting

The SaaS revolution is starting to take on an air of inevitability.

Oracle’s online business currently brings in a surprisingly large percentage in revenues, and Charles Fisher has recently signaled that the new Fusion technology will also be available in a SaaS framework. SAP has entered the BusinessByDesign product line amid little fanfare, and Microsoft recently started to champion their Microsoft Dynamics toolset.

When added to the already impressive list of Tier 1 SaaS providers, such as WorkDay, NetSuite and Salesforce.com we can see how opportunity draws competition. An interesting recent development is a global contract awarded to Salesforce.com, the sector pioneer, by Citibank; totally debunking the myth that SaaS is for SME’s only.

So what other changes are in the offing for the world of management consultants? Where are the big opportunities within this area?

As we pointed out in a previous article, VAR’s and channel companies are already starting to embrace this change by focusing on Business Process work and the work of implementing, rather than relying on license fees for their revenue. Charles Prince has also underlined this by recent claims that after the first 2.5 years the SaaS model can be even more profitable through sales of value add services, rather then the old technology models.

Salesforce.com is again setting the pace in this area starting another wave of tremendous change and tremendous opportunity. Force.com is just one of the waves of emerging platforms that companies and consultants alike can use to create their own online systems. Coghead, SuccessFactors, the coming Microsoft platform, are all examples of how companies can be able to take the next step in software on demand.

One possible hook for consultants is to use these platforms to generate their own niche tools, driving into areas where there is still little or no SaaS coverage. Thus providing them with a grab bag of niche applications to deploy at will. Exchanges like AppExchange are already bristling with niche tools that consultants can draw from to suit client needs. Coupled with the implementation services above it can provide a range of niche areas for consultants to build on through partnerships and other mechanisms.

However, all of this does beg the question; if companies can easily build and deploy small niche business applications globally, why would they rent them from a SaaS provider?

This, I feel, is one of the real growth areas for consulting professionals at the dawn of the SaaS age. The case for SaaS is established, most IT managers are coming, kicking and screaming, to embrace this advance in technology, and the platforms and tools now exist to develop these applications quickly, easily and economically.

There is a need for specialist companies to provide the development skills, post deployment implementation experience, and the culture change techniques to make these systems permanent. Specialists who can work with HTML, Ajax, Flex and any number of emerging programming languages to take advantage of the online tools now available.

Why would companies dedicate their own resources to this? It is niche work, given the size of the systems in use it is often not gigantic systems, and the consultant can and should also bring additional experience for developing and embedding work processes, providing training, and providing an external point of view. Allowing everybody else to focus on their line roles, this is why they are there in the first place.

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MicroStrategy and the Remaining BI market Space

The world of Business Intelligence is shrinking and growing both at the same time. With the recent purchases of Hyperion by Oracle, Business Objects by SAP, and Cognos by IBM, the top three players, the number of independent vendors has shrunk significantly.

So why have they bought into these companies? Obviously, the sector is growing exceptionally fast, booming in fact. Regardless of what else has happened technologically the dashboard remains the Killer app of the early 21^st century, particularly for senior leaders.

The three purchasing companies anticipate buying market share, a developed and mature technological solution for integration with their own products, and purchasing some of the talent that has developed the products and sales pipelines for these companies.

Sounds like a good plan, particularly the first two; but holding onto the talent in these companies could prove incredibly difficult. In fact, MicroStrategy, the remaining leader in the sector, is relying on it.

Within a day of the IBM announcement, this company was setting out its stall for disgruntled employees of the three recently purchased companies. Why not, Aberdeen Group noted in their recent report “Delivering Actionable Information to the Enterprise”, “BI skills are in limited supply”.

So there is a pool of talented people, experts in their area and knowledgeable of their markets, suddenly drafted into much larger companies, finding that their goals and ambitions are now not aligned with those of their new parent company, and quickly starting to feel like small fish in a very large pond.

MicroStrategy sees the whole acquisition phase as a great time of opportunity, possibly the greatest one they have had as a company to date. There overt statements and approaches to employees of recently acquired BI companies is one area where they can snap up disaffected talent and possibly buy their way into some long term relationships within this sector.

Other advantages come from the acts of acquisition itself. All three companies will have to focus on maintaining their client base, integrating their offerings with those of their new parent companies, and aligning their messaging and sales efforts.

MicroStrategy, on the other hand, is free to poach disaffected clients, unhappy with the change in suppliers, and they will be free to continue to develop their products and technologies, while other companies focus on integration.

This will also be a time for them to look at extending partnerships and growing their distribution channels. Why would Accenture, or CapGemini, dominant management consultancies that offer Cognos to their clients, want to represent the products of IBM, One of their direct competitors?

BI is very safe as a separate sector despite the removal of the top three players as independent companies. It will of course get tighter for the existing players, but the MicroStrategy approach shows that with a bit of innovation, and the right level of determination, this could be their best opportunity for breakaway growth.

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Growth of the Interim Management Market

In recent time the market for Interim Managers has gone through the roof. In Europe, the UK, the USA and throughout the Middle East, professionals working in this space are reporting greater levels of demand than many of them can cope with.

So what is an Interim Manager? How does it differ from the common areas of temping and sub-contractors? And, more importantly, how can we, as managerial consultants tap into this growing area of demand? I recently spoke with a range of experts in this field around the world to try to find the answer to these questions.

The first thing that came across is that Interim managers see themselves in a different field than management consultants. nearly all the people we spoke to in researching this piece considered consultants more focussed on giving advice and performing specific project related roles. IM’s, on the other hand, seemed to be more focussed on delivering the results, implementing and executing rather than enabling and advising could be a good description.

Eddie Mullen, A Director with Booster Interim Resources Ltd in the UK, notes that “Interim managers are normally over-qualified for assignments, and provide effective, impartial and expert support at short notice, integrated into the line management structure of the hiring organisation”.

Eddies distinguishes between consultants and Interim Managers through their cross functional operational expertise;”What differentiates contractors and other temporary staff from interims is value added. In addition to core skills (HR, finance, marketing, sales, IT), interims bring much greater generalist cross-functional management experience, expertise and knowledge to the hiring organization, at a senior level. By contrast contractors tend to be recruited to operate in a relatively narrow functional area. “

Eugene Rembor Principal of Rembor Partners Ltd, takes this descriptuion a bit further, explaining some of the differences between subcontractors and IM’s ” An interim manager is a senior person, usually someone who has held board positions, been there, done it and got the t-shirt. …[Subcontractors]..do none-line-management jobs or defined projects, whereas interim managers are turnaround experts, gap-busters, change managers or strategic consultants.

But is it worth it? Eugene goes on to add “I enjoy every second…I am always working when I want, but free to take a couple of months holiday when I want, I am earning money beyond my wildest dreams and get to see places.”

THis has to rank as one of the key areas where consulting professionals can find additional revenues over the coming years. There is a genuine lack of resources out there in business and management. Demand is exceeding supply, the old guard are retiring into semi-active and full retirement roles, and business is booming as never before. (Fueled by super commodity cycles, the spike in Asian growth and a range of other well know reasons)

In fact another of the people we spoke to, Vincent Papi, the Managing Director of Boyden Interim Management, sees an influx of available talent as well as a booming market. “Our practice is limited to senior executive positions and we’re growing at a very brisk clip. On an individual level, we’re finding plenty of talent — usually execs who took early retirement and have plenty of gas still in the tank — who relish the idea of taking on a serious challenge, even a short-term one.”

With his comment that his practice is growing at “a brisk clip” he believes that Interim management is now a permanent growth area within the North American resource marketplace.

From across the pond there is a similar view. David Hay, a Partner at AshtonPenny Interim, notes that there are a lot of inquiries but he also detects a lot of “window shopping.” Like others in our discussion he also believes that Interim Managers are”…senior executives who have chosen the interim route, rather than those who are struggling to find a new permanent role; those for whom earning money is less important than the interest and the challenge; those who network effectively and continuously.”

However, he also has a warning for those wishing to work in the industry and for those looking to hire from the pool of growing executive Interim talent. “Those…who are experienced IMs will have been on the receiving end of multiple calls about the same assignment from different providers.

In the main these are connected to companies seeking to use an IM for the first time, when there is a tendency to send the enquiry to all and sundry. Whilst I can understand their reasoning I have to say it is not always in the client’s best interest to create what is in effect a race. Inexperienced or less professional providers can be tempted to submit candidates without proper vetting, just to ‘get in first’. It’s frustrating for us and I’m sure it’s no different for you IMs out there.

Once, there were only a few providers here in the UK, but the market is now quite crowded, with a grey area around what I would call the top end of contracting and that must be confusing for new IMs and clients too.”

As a “would be” IM, this has been a fascinating look into the alternate universe of Interim Management, the potential rewards within the area, and the exciting levels iof growth associated with it. When (if) I ever go into practice for myself again I personally will have the Interim management badge as part of my own portfolio of works.

Interestingly, most people we contacted about this area all commented that most of the leads they get come from within their own networks.

For those of you looking to find out some additional information there are some excellent resources on the web, two of those mentioned in our discussion are.

• Interim Management Association (UK)
• Institute of Interim Management (UK)

Eddie Mullen, new to Interim Management and the best respondant we received on this topic puts it this way “I would certainly recommend interim management to others but would strongly recommend detailed research, personal refection and structured planning and preparation before committing to an interim career, particularly as it can take time to get established.”

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Boostrapping for Consultants

Starting a consultancy today is far easier than it has been in the past. Particularly with the incredible range of free or low cost tools that are available for managing business infrastructure, low cost marketing or PR.

Bootstrapping is the art of pulling one’s self up by the bootstraps, or the art of going it alone, with little to no funds, and hopefully making it.

Most of the skills associated with Bootstrapping revolve around guts, determination, the willingness to take risks, and being innovative.

But… there are a lot of tools out there that make parts of this a lot easier, and there is a well worn path by those who have gone before you to show you the way through some of the common problems.

5 Must Use Tools for Bootstrapping Consultants

1) LinkedIn - I am a big fan of this networking tool and I recommend it to anybody who needs to get their name out there. Answer questions, publicize your profile, get your name seen and make sure your details draw attention to what you are doing.

2) GoDaddy - Great, easy to use, cheap and has features that can have you with a published corporate presence website within the hour. Love it and use it a lot!

3) Google Apps – Another feature of the modern Internet that I would be lost without. I use Google Mail as my corporate email account and have linked it to my emails from my other websites and companies. I also use Google Pages a lot for holding files, the Calendar for scheduling between myself and others I work with, and this Blog is published via Blogger.

4) Zoho – This is where most of my blogs are written, and where most of my files are kept. I have found the word processor to be an excellent tool and as yet I have not had the need to use any of the additional items there. I also use this for writing my articles, and I am using it to hold the manuscript of my next book.

5) Salesforce.com – For those of you that read this blog regularly you will notice that I am a bit of a fan of this product and company. In fact, I own shares! I started using this when I was working as a Business Development Manager some years ago and found ti to be a fantastic view into how business software could/should be. Cheap, functional, intuitive and useful.

I use this still today where needed to manage my customer relationships, and to drive through the statistics needed for success in sales, regardless of what you are selling.

But even with these tools the only thing that will separate you from certain failure is your core idea, the value for it in the market place, and your ability to not give up and keep driving towards your goals.

Isn’t it strange how we can’t find a way, there seems to be no path to take… then we find a way! And we’re of to the next step in our careers!

Trends – Consulting growth areas

As the world moves towards the end of the first decade of the 21st century, management consulting remains one ofthe growth areas regardless of the industry you are working in. There are lots of reasons for this, past downsizing efforts, an attempt to gain competitive advantage, the search for leading practices and a whole range of other areas.

However, not all areas are created equal and the next 3 – 5 years are going to be particularly booming for certain sectors of the professional services industries. This 5 part list is an attempt to try to see into the future to detect where consultants could be very profitable in the near future.

1. Infrastructure. It aint sexy but it is booming. In almost any country in the world there is a renewed interest in infrastructure consulting and management. From the USA, where the falll of the Mississippi bridge seemed to be the starters pistol, through mature markets of Europe and the UK, through to emerging markets like the Middle East and India.

Best placed here will be management consultants with the ability to offer services in physical asset management, capital spending optimization, project management and commissioning services. Geography is going to be an issue for this area. Unlike technology consulting infrastructure consultancies will need to be local or able to get local.

Steve Bird, Independent Infrastructure Consultant in the UK focuses in on the water industry saying that “identification of appropriate good practice for the water industry with an auditable standard” will be one of the key consulting growth areas in the USA.

2. Learning and development.Leo Irakliotis, a Chicago based educator and consultant believes that “Companies realize the importance of narrowing the gap between the expected skill set and the skill set acquired in college or in previous employment, for new hires.

Strategically planned L&D, with specific methodologies, an in-house team of experts, and a network of proficient consultants and subject-matter experts is a critical growth tool.”

As the resource base continues to wane, and recruiting continues to be one of the chief issues facing consultancies, an ongoing approach that includes L&D at its core will become more and more important.

Consultancies with a proven track record in training and employee development will benefit best from this. However, geography will not be an issue with the growth in Internet training technologies and remote consulting techniques.

3. Communication. “There’s just so much change going on right now, and every time you turn around, some other company is coming out with something new that needs an explanation…whether that be writing (especially technical but also in such arenas as blogging and copy writing), speaking in front of groups, communicating ideas to a team, or public relations.” Thomas “Myerman” Myer, Triple Dog Dare.

4. SaaS. A no brainer in todays market. Consultants will be challenged to engage with this booming area quicker than they are currently. There are a whole host of ideas ion our recent post here. Basically this is a trend that is going to continue, one that SAP and Oracle founder Larry Ellison have already committed themselves to, and one that Salesforce.com has already positioned itself as an early leader in.

Whether it be through business processes, delivery of niche programs, or through the integration layers that always accompany IT advances, there can be no doubt that this is a growing area of revenues for management consultants.

5. Recruitment. Another easy one, but not in the shape it is in today. Finding key skills in todays crowded market place is going to continue to be a skill that will make or break organizations all over the world.

Consultants in this area with a proven advantage will be those who can generate innovative ways of delivering high skilled employees to companies throughout the world. This could be in the form of growing networks such as LinkedIn, through innovative uses of Interim consulting practices, or through provisions of remote services where possible.

The great opportunities offered in this area are already driving the economy of India in particular, even through their own estimates state that 50% of engineers within that country are not fit for international work.

Building value into your consulting practice

Congratulations, you are making it! Your step out on your own has gone well so far. You now have four other people working with you, revenues in the low 7 figures and you are starting to realize your dreams of independence.

The fast cars, nice houses and great vacations are taken care of. So now what?

If you look around it seems that all the people you have hired are strangely like you are, each year you need to spend the same amount of effort driving work into the firm, and what happens if you want to walk away tomorrow?

If you are honest the firm is probably not worth too much. All the value is locked away inside the skills of you and your four colleagues, and your best exit strategy is probably either to just close the doors, or to sell it to the guys you hired.

Not really a great value proposition even though it is generating good revenues. So how can you build real value into your consulting practice? The sort of value others would pay millions to have?

Tiffani Bova, a Research Director for Gartner Group, puts it like this “When you look at this type of business, the value of the company must be greater than the ‘projects’ you deliver to your clients and the people in your company.” She makes the point that successful consultancy firms build their business on a combination of both project based work and some form of predictable revenue which delivers long term predictable value.

Paul Collins, a Managing Director of Equiteq in the UK, agrees and he should know. In his career he has sold a 30% stake in his own consulting business WCI in 2004, valuing the firm at £50m. He has also built a further 2 service firms, bought 2 and sold 3!

Paul is a strong advocate for developing a strong sales pipeline, one that can be used to predict fture reveunes accurately based on todays leads, yesterdays sales, and tomorrows aspirations. Predictable revenue is the baseline requirement of any firm looking to create permanent value for stakeholders of for eventual sale.

So how can you do this?

Octavio Ballesta, a Technology Project Manager at Inelectra, believes the basis of generating value within a consulting practice revolves around strong branding, good long term relationships with clients, and strategic partnerships. However, he pays special attention to resource diversification.

“In order to consolidate a competitive advantage you should hire, train and retain progressively world-class consultants with insights in Business Process Management, Six-Sigma methodology, Knowledge Management, CRM and Change Management to offer to the relevant market an enterprise-wide solution in different disciplines of consultancy. You should avoid dependence from one superstar consultant to manage your firm.”

This is a recurring theme in all the experts we spoke to about building value. The importance of a system over one or two superstar consultants is always emphasized as a way to build permanent value into the organization. Stephen Hancock, CEO of enCONCERT, offers the following advice in this area “f you have a particular skill that is valuable then you could try to systematise it using technology and then develop consultants or solution partners that can deliver the service without you being ever present. This could create income streams in license fees or royalties which earn “while you sleep”

The last area to explore in terms of developing a pipeline of repeatable sales and performance is to do with the elusive art of developing IP. “You need to build your IP as part of the practice” Says Brian Macleod, “This could be inherent in the way you train, explain or connect with your client. It must be defined as methods and techniques that can be communicated to others with the team.”

So experts agree, if you want to build permanent value into your company, the sort of value that is worth more than the value of your projects and the people who work for you, then a few of the key areas you will need to focus on include: diversification of resources, systematizing your approach, guarding and internalizing your IP, and finding a way to generate predictable recurring revenue streams.

Cost of Finance at Typical Companies Rises due to Compliance Activities

Typical Global 1000 Companies Now Spend $138 Million/Year More Than World-Class Companies on Finance Operations; Face Long-Term Challenge in Cost Reduction Efforts

ATLANTA & LONDON–(BUSINESS WIRE) Fallout from compliance-related activities continues to prevent CFOs at typical companies from resuming more than a decade of cost reduction efforts, according to new research from The Hackett Group, a global strategic advisory firm and an Answerthink company.

Hackett’s 2007 Finance Book of Numbers^TM research found that the typical Global 1000 company saw the cost of finance increase slightly over the past year, and is now spending 12% more than they did three years ago, in part due to increased focus and spending on compliance-related activities. World-class finance organizations, which have continued to reduce costs over Hackett’s 15-year research history, are now spending less than half what typical companies do. At a typical $22 billion Global 1000 company, this spending gap now amounts to savings of $138 million/year for world-class companies. In addition, world-class finance organizations operate with less than half the staff in virtually every key area of finance.

Compliance-related activities played a key part in ending the 14-year trend toward lower finance costs at typical Global 1000 companies in 2004, and according to Hackett, it is very likely that typical companies may face long-term challenges in their efforts to continue to reduce finance costs. As a result, the gap to world-class performance is expected to continue to widen. Companies with world-class finance organizations are now spending 47% less than the industry average on external audit fees, and operating with 44% fewer compliance staff.