Selecting and contracting an IT or BPO service provider is usually a complex process. It takes significant time and effort from all parties involved. Service providers put in a serious investment with only a limited chance to get a return. For clients it seems to be a necessary evil to put everything on hold for […]
Recently the company I work for introduced Tibbr as an internal Social Network. It is a nice product suite with functionality you would expect in such a platform. We can now chat, blog, set up communities, and exchange ideas online via Tibbr. We can use it in the office but it also has mobile interfaces […]
Recently I engaged in a number of Sourcing Strategy projects for clients in a broad range of industries. In these type of projects we (it’s almost always a team effort) supported clients in being specific about their requirements, add relevant market trends and determine the impact for next steps. Several sourcing related topics are listed […]
The price model is an important factor in outsourcing contracts. The overall trend in price models is towards utility based pricing where standardized services have a fixed price. Then the total price of a set of services is calculated by P(rice) times Q(uantity). Typically we refer to this model as PxQ. It greatly simplifies comparing […]
When you want to sell your house you obviously want to get the right price for it. So you start asking around how you could make it more valuable or at least more attractive. Suggestions are easily found and they will be quantified with the associated investment: the gardener will tell you to improve your […]
In the early days of industrial revolution scientists conducted many tests to better understand what impacts productivity. A well known experiment was to differentiate the level of illumination in otherwise comparable factory halls. Before and afterwards the productivity was measured. To the surprise of the researchers both an increase and decrease in lighting level improved […]
The Management Consultant as any professional strives for the best result. Whether she/he drafts a proposal, makes a presentation or creates a final report, there is continuously room for further improvement and putting in more effort is always an option. These type of situations led Cyril Northcote Parkinson to his famous observation in 1955: “Work […]
Sometimes when you see a dog-owner walking in the park, the question arises who is in the lead. Especially children and elderly people can find themselves in challenging situations. Despite the fact that they hold the leash they have only limited impact on the direction chosen by the animal on the other end. Dogs are quite […]
Sometimes it seems that all communication today is in sound-bites, 140 character tweets or blog posts. Anything beyond 500 words seems to be in the exclusive domain of poets, novelists and other professional writers. Not so for the Management Consultant. Creating a proposal for a client or drafting a report at the end of a […]
Every trade or industry has its tools. And apart from the IT stuff like spreadsheets, word-processors and a variety of presentation apps, today’s Management Consultant cannot work without conference calls. Communication is among our primary skills, and projects more often than not are spread over geographies. It is therefore almost on a daily basis that […]
The phrase “fact free politics” was made popular in 2010 by Bill Clinton when referring to the performance of Sarah Palin, then running for office as the Republican candidate for vice-president. To be precise, he warned not to underestimate her as we were entering an era of fact free politics. As I stumbled over the […]
In today’s traffic you can regularly see cars with a sign stating “Baby on board!”. It puzzles me greatly what moves parents to share this type of information with their fellow drivers. I do not intend to discuss whether this information is predominantly correct. Typically the sign is of a more permanent nature than the […]
