| | By Mick James
Ever since its
formation in 1991, IBM’s
consulting arm has been
the “dark matter” in the
consultancy universe.
Although it’s by some
way the largest
consulting entity in the
world, the company never
divulges precise figures
for numbers of
consultants and
revenues, and the
importance of the
consulting arm, both in
its own industry and to
IBM itself is often
overlooked. The tendency
is for IBM to be
pigeonholed either as a
very, very large systems
integrator, or an
outsourcing and IT
company which happens to
employ a lot of
consultants in
pre-sales.All this of
course overlooks the
effects on IBM of its
acquisition in 2002 of
PricewaterhouseCoopers’
consultants, a move that
in my view IBM made far
too little of at the
time and since. IBM has
clearly now recognized
this — a new campaign,
“The Other IBM” promotes
“a side to IBM you may
not know” and brings to
the foreground its
consulting expertise,
which spans financial
management, human
capital, marketing,
sales and services,
strategy and change, and
supply chain and
procurement.
“Since the
acquisition of PwC we’ve
been pretty much full | |
| |
| | statement.
“PwC was the catalyst
for the next era of
change,” says Brown,
herself a former PwC
partner, who says she
was “incredibly touched”
by the welcome she and
her colleagues received
at IBM. As well as
offering a viable way
forward for the
consultancy in the
regulator-dominated,
post-Enron era, the move
also seems to have
shielded it from the
worst effects of the
post-2002 downturn.
Now BCS is very much
on the offence, as the
“other IBM” campaign
shows “I was quite
impressed that IBM would
take that step, says
Brown. “Big companies
are very protective of
their brands. But
everybody thinks IBM is
a computer company and
we’re much more than
that.”
This change means not
just a broadening of
IBM’s service offering,
but in the way it
relates to all its
customers:
“IBM had talked about
delivery to customers,
and this has become
delivery to clients,”
says Brown. “That’s a
really symbolic change,
it’s not just a word, it
really does imply
something in a
transaction. As part of
this move IBM has
changed its values and
its dynamics.”
One key feature of
the post-merger BCS is a | |
|
| | focus on strategy
consulting. Although the
original consulting
group was set up by Bob
Howe, a former Booz
Allen strategy
consultant, it
deliberately steered
clear of strategy work.
Now that has changed,
with the group prepared
to take on anything from
stand-alone strategy
projects, to unraveling
the high-end
complexities of
transformational
outsourcing.
“You’re not going to
get there if you’re not
in the boardroom, and
that’s one of the things
the PwC group brought
with it, boardroom
relationships.” In turn,
IBM offers its
consultants a breadth
and depth of resources
to draw on none of its
rivals can match.
“Some of this stuff
is mind-bogglingly
complex,” says Brown.
“You’re reengineering
this, outsourcing that,
reshaping this bit of
infrastructure and
consolidating elsewhere.
Plus you want a supplier
that can do that in 100
countries, and put
together the strategy
and the implementation.
That’s not every
client’s cup of tea, of
course, but these
megadeals just did not
happen at PwC — we would
have killed for one.”
The other aspect to
IBM is that it is itself
a huge blue-chip
enterprise:
| |
|
| |
“Our consultancy is
used internally as well
— some of our strategy
people have had a whale
of a time consulting
within IBM,” says Brown.
This adds an interesting
spin on the careers side
as well, as consultants
who wish to pursue
careers in management
outside consultancy can
do so within IBM — Howe
himself, for example,
ended up as head of the
banking division.
The other side of the
coin is that, from its
inception, IBM has been
able to draw on its own
internal process
expertise and put these
people into consulting
assignments. This has
helped tremendously with
IBM’s diversity
consulting business,
where the firm’s own
internal diversity
agenda has fed into its
work with clients. This
is an area that Brown is
very keen to develop
within BCS, particularly
in the recruitment and
development of women,
and one we hope to
report on further in
Top-Consultant.
I for one am very
encouraged to see IBM
BCS stepping out of the
shadows and beginning to
assume a leadership role
in the industry. What is
perhaps more interesting
though will be to see
that happening within
IBM itself.
| |
|
| | service,” says Liz
Brown, Services Leader
for the EMEA North for
IBM Business Consulting
Services. “The big thing
that that acquisition
was about was creating a
full-service proposition
across all those service
areas.”
Although from the
outside PwC seemed to
have been noiselessly
absorbed, the addition
of a top layer of
process and strategy
skills has changed not
just IBM’s consultancy
business but the whole
company. Seen in the
context of CEO Lou
Gerstner’s agenda for
change at IBM, which
radically tilted the
company’s focus towards
its services offerings,
the PwC integration
becomes far more
significant than the
acquisition of a few
consultants.
In fact, says Brown,
Gerstner cited
integrating PwC as the
“third big thing” for
IBM. Given that the
first two were first,
the mammoth task of
keeping the company
together — and it’s easy
now to forget what tough
times IBM went through —
and second entering the
internet and ebusiness
arena, this is quite a | |
|
Previous Page 
