Harvard Business Review - Sept. 2008 Case Study

For those of you that haven't picked up September's issue of the HBR I will give a brief synopsis of what the case is about.

First, the question:

"Are Brady's worst fears justified?"

Synopsis:

Barton Brady is the CEO (I think) of Serendipity Associates (SA). It is a consulting firm that specializes in strategy...or at least branding. Two of Brady's biggest clients, Pixar and Dan Brown have just pulled out of SA to a competing firm. A senior partner, Yasmin Buonarroti, suggested that it was from a price-war loss...but that didn't make sense to Brady as margin pressures weren't really a concern of his firm.

Yasmin was waiting for Brady in the boardroom when he arrived at the office and showed Brady a blog post from Rhetorical Butler talking about SA in a VERY negative light. (It is likely that "Rhetorical Butler" is Hank Wittgenstein who is described to be a rogue philospher that heads up a competing firm. Wittgenstein is a low-cost consultant that is outsourcing some of his work to Ireland.)

We end the case with Brady going for a walk to think about how he will respond to this blog to stop the hemmorage of his client base.

Personal Analysis:

(I am writing this before reading the Expert advice...hopefully I have a matching opinion)

Brady's fears are definitely justified. With an upcoming competitor trying to strategically position himself as a low-cost and high quality consultant it will pull clientele away from more than his consulting firm.

In today's digital age a blog post can be detrimental to one's brand and no matter the response....the message is out there. That being said, it is important that Brady create a post speaking about the benefits of keeping the consulting teams "local" or at least "regional" to better service customers. He needs to further outline why outsourcing work will inherently reduce the quality when a firm adds degrees of separation. He will also need to address the issue of the blogger, the metaphor overuse or misuse in the consulting industry. It will be VERY important that Brady does not attempt to specifically address his company...but the industry at large. Talk about re-inventing the SA brand into its own sans-metaphor society that delivers sustainable results to clients.

I think that the concept of globalization is great to expand current lines of business. But, to deliver the type of work that strategic consulting firms are known for.....the consulting team will need to be working with the company and have a large presence at the company site. The concept of outsourcing consulting work will only reduce the quality of work.


So...that's my take on the Case Study. I apologize for the stream of conciousness type of writing I did there...but I've got a lot of things in my hopper.

Has anyone else read the case? Do you have any additional insights or suggestions???