Clearly, you could assume that consultants have long
played a significant role in innovation. “Consultants are themeans by which knowledge gets around the world faster, andit’s because of this knowledge dissemination that people makeprogress faster and economies grow,” explains Chris Meyer,who founded and led Ernst & Young’s Center for Business
Innovation in the late 1990s.
IP + Co l l a b o ration= Innova t i o n
Still, some argue from a historical point of view that consultantsare poorly suited for the practice of innovation.“All you have to do is read the
H arvard Business Review
,particularly the articles written by the partners of leadingconsultingfirms, to see that — my goodness! — they reallyp r o v i d emisleading guidance on how to manage innovation,”says Clayton Christensen, the noted Harvard BusinessSchool professorand consultant, who is today recognized bymany as the pre-eminent thought leader on the subject of industry innovationand the obstacles that curtail it.According to Christensen, the reason the advice consultantsgive is often flawed is due largely to the fact that the data theybase their guidance on illuminates only the past.“If you really look at how consulting firms — especiallythe big consulting firms — generate billings, it’s by puttingarmies of consultants on the ground and giving them reams of data and asking them to find meaning or trends in the data,” hesays. “The problem is that data is only available about the past,and most consultants don’t have good models or theories thatallow them to look into the future with accuracy.”
Travel
the pages of
McKinsey Quart er l y
or
The Harvard Business Review
, and arguably helped IBM better certify its th o ug h tleadership credentials — a necessary passport for its intendedpassage into the ranks of strategy consulting firms.It was agathering designed to raise the level of discussion aroundinnovation, or perhaps infuse it with insights from IBM’smaturing innovation vision. At its conclusion,G I Ohad morethan likely accomplished both.“It doesn’t make a lot of sense to think of innovation as acompetitive race, because no individual country, corpora-tion, or university will ever have a lock on innovation. It’s arace that never ends,” explained Palmisano. And so it is inthe world of consulting, where IBM’s growing consultingambitions have led it to cultivate a dual identity of bothadviser and innovator.IBM is not alone. Today, Accenture — perhaps IBM’s
fiercest services rival — uses the slogan “Committed tod el i veringinnovation,” while numerous smaller rivals have in
one way or another incorporated the promise of businessin nov at i oninto their marketing.
However, the desire to be cast as an “innovator” is nothing
new in consulting.More than 30 years ago, Marvin Bower, the modern founderof McKinsey & Company, was reported to have posed thef oll owi ngquestions to his partners: “What firm is better qual-
ified than McKinsey to bring together for our clients in onecritical country or in a number of countries the best relevantmanagement practices of all countries? And what firm is betterqualified to innovate by combining the management practicesof several countries into new and more effective practices?”
SpecialFeature:
The Soul of a New Consultancy (Second of Two Parts)
34
M a r c h / A ri l2 0 0 5
C o n s u l t i n g
To Be Not Just an Ad v i s e r,but an Innova to r
IBM is not the first consultant to don a dual identity
… to innovate by combining the managementpractices of several countries into new and moree f f e c t i ve practices?”
— Marvin Bower ,Modern Founder,McKinsey & Company (1970) — Sam Palmisano,Chairman & CEO,IBM Corp.(2004)
“What firm is betterqualified than McKinsey“A few years ago,wemade a fundamental decision
that IBM would lead the high-value innovationspaces of our industry and to focus on businessesand institutions of all sizes,in every industry,inall parts of the world.”
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