Victoria academic 1st to receive management consulting award – Scoop.co.nz (press release)

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Monday, 1 December 2014, 9:38 am Press Release: Victoria University of Wellington

1 December 2014

Victoria University academic first in New Zealand to receive international fellow award for management consulting

Victoria University academic, Stephen Cummings, is the first New Zealander to become an International Council of Management Consulting Institutes (ICMCI) Academic Fellow.

The award is a mark of distinction which recognises academics internationally who have contributed to the study and teaching of management consultancy. The fellowship was announced today by the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC) New Zealand.

Stephen Cummings is Professor of Strategic Management at Victoria University where he teaches strategy on both the undergraduate and MBA programmes. He has been instrumental in establishing a partnership between Victoria Business School and IMC New Zealand to bridge the gap between consulting and academia.

“It’s fantastic to see Professor Cummings acknowledged internationally for his outstanding contribution to the management consulting profession,” says IMC New Zealand Immediate Past President, Phil Guerin.

“IMC New Zealand exists to promote professional standards and codes of conduct for management consulting in New Zealand, and so it’s really important to have strong links with academics teaching those who will go on to work in the consulting industry, such as MBA students.”

He says IMC New Zealand and Victoria University regularly hold joint forums bringing together managers, consultants, lecturers and MBA students.

“The awarding of this Fellowship to Professor Stephen Cummings by the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes (ICMCI) is testament to his international standing amongst the management consulting profession,” says Professor Bob Buckle, Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of Commerce at Victoria Business School.

“It also recognises Stephen’s success at building effective connections between the academic and professional community.”

ENDS

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Nashville retailers look to Small Business Saturday for boost – The Tennessean

Local businesses ready for Small Business Saturday – WZZM

Free business consulting in Ozark – Springfield News-Leader

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Springfield 4:31 p.m. CST November 29, 2014

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The Ozark Chamber of Commerce at the Carl G. Hefner Enterprise Center, 1471 W. South Street in Ozark, is hosting free one-on-one business consulting appointments with Chrystal Irons, Business Development Specialist, through the University of Missouri Extension Services and Small Business Administration.

The consultations are held every first and third Wednesday of the month. The next one is planned for Wednesday, between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Set an appointments by calling Emily Carpenter at 417-581-6139 or email info@ozarkchamber.com. The service is offered free to Ozark Chamber members.

New H&R Block location

A new H&R Block retail tax office is now open at 1601 B W. Sunshine St. in Springfield. The office can be reached by calling 417-863-1040. There are more than half a dozen offices in Springfield.

“For more than 55 years, H&R Block has been delivering trusted tax advice in neighborhoods across the country,” said Serita Eldridge, district manager for H&R Block, in a written statement.

Good Morning Springfield

The next Good Morning Springfield event is 7:30-8:30 a.m. Thursday at the White River Conference Center, 600 W. Sunshine St. The cost for breakfast and attendance is $15 for Chamber members, $20 for nonmembers. Visit SpringfieldChamber.com for more information.

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Honoring Small Business, Obamas Go Book Shopping – New York Times

In Asheville, every day is Small Business Saturday – Asheville Citizen-Times

How the Internet is giving Small Business Saturday an edge – Fortune

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Today is Small Business Saturday. Main Street shops across the country will have their chance to get a share of the holiday dollars, as voices from Yelp to President Barack Obama urge customers to “Shop Small.”

Since its inception in 2010, Americans have responded in growing numbers, with more than $5.7 billion spent last year alone by consumers who were aware it was Small Business Saturday, according to the National Federation of Independent Business and American Express AMEX .

While we turn our attention to America’s small businesses, this new appeal of the small is not just taking hold one day of the year. Something is actually changing.

It used to be that “economies of scale” meant bigger was better. Since the days of Henry Ford, mass production brought down the price of everything from cell phones to washing machines, and big box sellers were the purchase point of choice as a result.

But today we find ourselves in an era of “unscale,” where small businesses and entrepreneurs can successfully compete with far larger competitors, as Hemut Taneja of General Catalyst wrote last year in the Harvard Business Review.

There are three reasons why small businesses are positioned to better compete.

First, small businesses now view their markets as global. In fact, the National Small Business Association’s 2013 survey of small businesses found that 64% of respondents reported selling goods or services outside the United States, up from 52% three years earlier.

With new trade agreements, including the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, likely to come to a vote in the next year or two, Washington could open up even more markets to small companies.

Second, the Internet is only one of many ways where technology is changing the game for small businesses. Operationally, small businesses and entrepreneurs were often at a disadvantage in the early days of information technology. It was expensive to buy and maintain computer systems and keep up with changing software and upgrades.

Now, cloud computing and other innovations are at the fingertips of small business owners. With that, systems like payroll, inventory management and accounting can all be purchased as services that are maintained through automation, at state-of-the-art levels.

And, that brings me to nimbleness. Today, a small business can spend less time on the back office and more time innovating and outselling their larger competitors. Large firms find it hard to innovate, ironically, due to their scale. As a result, it’s often less costly for them to buy up new ideas in the form of small companies. In fact, 2014 looks like it could be a record year for acquisitions, with giants like Yahoo YHOO

making 18 purchases of smaller firms this year alone, while even outside the tech world, General Mills GM scooped up the organic food maker Annie’s Homegrown.

The reality is that large companies are looking to develop supply chains that bring them not only just-in-time components and materials, but also new, entrepreneurial ideas that position them to lead their market.

Entrepreneurship has always been America’s secret sauce, and there’s likely been no better time to be an entrepreneur. You can reach global markets, use technology to have smaller and smarter back office operations, and all the while, continue to be nimble and create innovative products and services.

And, on Small Business Saturday, attention deserves to be paid to the unscaling forces at work today that are helping “the small” gain ground. They are also helping America stay more competitive and continue to be a land of limitless potential and opportunity.

Karen Mills is a senior fellow at Harvard Business School and Harvard Kennedy School focused on competitiveness, entrepreneurship and innovation. She was a member of President Obama’s cabinet, serving as administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration from 2009 to 2013.

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Local Businesses To Offer Deals During Small Business Saturday Celebrations … – CBS Local

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LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Several local businesses across Los Angeles are expected to participate in Small Business Saturday celebrations throughout the day.

Los Angeles City Councilman Mitch O’Farrell announced he will visit nine local and independently owned small businesses throughout the 13th district.

Atwater Village, Kaldi Coffee, Proof Bakery, Amoeba Records and The Cheese Store are just a few businesses O’Farrell plans to stop at during his tour from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

O’Farrell explained studies show that when consumers shop locally, money is re-circulated, which creates more tax revenue for the community and state.

These businesses also contribute to the character of our community by offering a more diverse selection of goods and services, O’Farrell added.

Discounts and deals will be offered in the Melrose Business Improvement District from noon to 8:00 p.m., located in shops across the area of Fairfax Avenue to Highland Avenue.

Up-and-coming musicians will play along the decorated streets during the district’s fifth annual celebration.

Small Business Saturday has become a national event to raise awareness, support and celebrate small businesses, along with their contributions, to our communities.

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Obama marks Small Business Saturday at DC bookstore – USA TODAY

Small Business Saturday offers variety of options in Grand Rapids – MLive.com

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GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Beth Dornan is taking a different approach to her holiday shopping this year.

The Rockford resident is committing to Small Business Saturday and staying away from sprawling shopping centers and ubiquitous big box retailers.

“I’m not stepping foot in the mall, or any other store, and saving my spending for local merchants,” said Dornan, whose pledge doesn’t include her two teen daughters who went shopping at Woodland Mall on Black Friday.

“I like the idea of sitting out Black Friday shopping because it makes a bigger statement than simply focusing on local small business spending for one day.”

That thinking is growing Small Business Saturday into a major economic boom for independent businesses across West Michigan and the country. The campaign was launched in 2010 by American Express to encourage people to buy from independent retailers and other small businesses the Saturday after Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

Dornan sees her decision as a tangible way to support locally-owned businesses that create jobs, drive growth and keep dollars in the community.

Some of the places she plans to visit on Saturday, Nov. 29, include the Grand Rapids Downtown Market and independently owned retailers Martha’s Vineyard, BlackLamb, Rebel Reclaimed and Paperdoll.

The Downtown Market, at 435 Ionia Ave. SW, is rewarding shoppers on Small Business Saturday with $10 in Market Money for every $50 spent Downtown Market gift cards or class gift certificates. The market’s currency is valid at any Downtown Market business from Jan. 1 through Feb. 1.

Several Downtown Market businesses are doing their own promotions:

• Malamiah Juice Bar is offering buy one, get one free juice.

• Relish Green Grocer is giving 25 percent discount on some of its Michigan made products.

• Fish Lads, a seafood vendor, is selling $60 gift cards for $50 through Dec. 5.

“We had a great weekend last year after Thanksgiving. A lot of people were out doing their holiday shopping,” said Claire Duthler, special events manager for the Downtown Market. “A lot of our customers prefer to shop locally and support the local community.”

American Express also has a promotion that gives up to three $10 credits on its customers’ next statement for those who shop at qualifying small business locations. The catch is that card holders have to register at ShopSmall.com by Nov. 29, or before the limit is reached.

The seasonal promotion builds on West Michigan “buy local” campaigns. Small businesses in communities with organizations like Local First, that promote shop local, averaged a 8.6 percent increase in sales in 2012 from the previous year, according to the American Independent Business Alliance, a network of community business organizations.

That’s more than double the growth in communities without campaigns.

In Grand Rapids, the Uptown Holiday Shop Hop on Dec. 4 is another event that spotlights locally-owned businesses.

This year, Tarona Guy moved her annual West Michigan Small Business Expo to Celebration! Cinema North and IMAX, at 2121 Celebration Dr NE.

The bigger space allows her to provide a free lunch to shoppers and offer a presentation by local attorney Angela T. Ross, Guy said.

She added the event, which runs 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 29, will include free samples and giveaways from the participating businesses.

Shandra Martinez covers business for MLive/The Grand Rapids Press. Email her or follow her on Twitter @shandramartinez.

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Small Business Saturday Still Small Potatoes, Owners Complain – ABC News

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Politicians and officials from the Small Business Administration visited small businesses in Olde Town Arvada in Denver, Nov. 25, 2014.

Cyrus McCrimmon/The Denver Post/Getty Images

Small Business Saturday is still very much in the shadow of Black Friday, according to small-business owners.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving is meant to boost sales and customers far away from the big-box stores. But some owners say the day doesn’t rake in nearly as much sales and traffic as Black Friday.

Black Friday is “more known,” said Darrell Kingston, the owner of the footwear retailer Vamps in New York City.

Michael Blossom, the owner of Florodora, a women’s clothes store in Chicago, agrees, saying that Small Business Saturday does not have much impact on his own business though he appreciates its efforts.

“I wouldn’t attribute a lot of [sales] to small business Saturday,” Blossom told ABC News.

Why I Refuse to Go Shopping On Black Friday

Black Friday: The Most Noteworthy 2014 Deals

11 Things Not to Buy on Black Friday

American Express started Small Business Saturday in 2010, intending to help raise awareness about the importance and products offered by small businesses. The U.S. Senate officially recognized the day in 2012 with several politicians and President Obama expressing their support. Over 1,450 people and local organizations joined the movement last year as “neighborhood champions,” pledging their support for small businesses in their community, according to American Express.com.

Denise Stahl Shealy, who opened women’s clothing store Steel Gardens in South Carolina earlier this year, says she is excited over her first Small Business Saturday and thinks it will bring in lots of customers.

“I think more exposure to it and more people learning about it, it will become a part of the routine just like going shopping on Black Friday,” she told ABC News.

But some say a major marketing effort is needed to boost the day.

“More marketing and advertising,” Kingston told ABC News. “Because for this day and this year, I have not seen any marketing for this event.”

American Express offers discounts and other rewards Saturday to anyone who uses their card at a registered small business, with rewards differing every year. It puts out online advertisements about small companies to help raise awareness about the day.

Amex says that on Nov. 29, if you spend $10 or more at qualifying businesses, you get $10 back, up to three times. “American Express holders can register to get up to $30 back when they Shop Small on Small Business Saturday,” the company said.

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This 24-Year-Old High School Dropout Is Tackling A Problem Every Startup … – Business Insider

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YouTubeIndinero CEO Jessica Mah.

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Jessica Mah, the founder and CEO of Indinero, was only 11 years old when she started her first business. Having learned how to code in fifth grade, Mah built websites for people and got paid a few thousand dollars a month.

That experience led her to do something more serious for her next business. She leased servers out of a few data centers and created a fully managed hosting service for small businesses, which she describes as a “cheaper version of Rackspace.” She had about four part time employees and generated six-figure revenues from it.

Although she had sales, Mah struggled to deal with cash flow and her server business eventually closed when she was 14 years old. By then, she was spending 40 hours a week on her business, and school was no longer a priority. Her grades were terrible and she ended up dropping out of high school.

“I was so stressed out,” Mah told Business Insider. “I remember thinking I was never going to start my own company and would never go into technology.”

But Mah was still smart enough to get into Simon’s Rock, an “early college” designed for students who want to get college education before graduating high school. It took her two years there to realize computer science was the only major she was happy with, and so, at age 17, she applied to UC Berkeley’s computer science program. After another two years, at 19, Mah graduated from UC Berkeley’s CS program.

Her time at Berkeley also brought back something she had been missing for a few years: her entrepreneurial drive. From her past experience running small businesses, Mah knew how the current accounting software were outdated. She knew accounting was an area ripe for innovation, but none of her fellow computer scientists were interested in the space because most of them had never dealt with it before. So by graduation, she created an accounting software called Indinero with her friend. “I wished there was some service like the ‘Google of accounting for small businesses,’” Mah says.

And the day after graduation, with a prototype, she headed down to Mountain View to join Y Combinator’s summer program. After 3 months, Mah raised $1.2 million for the seed round of Indinero. She was only 20 years old.

Indinero is a software that provides accounting, tax filing, and payroll management all under one service. It basically takes care of all the back office work by automatically importing data from the business owner’s financial accounts. It also has full-time professional accountants and tax specialists manually reviewing financial statements to make sure all the books are in order. “We just make it a lot more cost-effective and affordable because you have all these software layers doing so much of the work,” Mah says.

Indinero has been growing quite fast and now has 75 employees. It’s raised $8 million from angel investors, including 500 Startups’ Dave McClure, Yelp’s Jeremy Stoppelman, and Khosla Venture’s Keith Robois. Mah says over 500 companies use Indinero, including small businesses and bigger ones like some PR firms and law firms.

Despite all this success, Mah, now 24, says running a company has been a big challenge for her. “It’s my first company that’s doing millions in revenues, my first company that has full-time employees and a full office…So it’s been pretty difficult,” Mah says. But she still thinks it’s all worth the struggle. “It’s challenging at times. But it’s an incredibly rewarding job.”

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Area businesses take part in Small Business Saturday – Green Bay Press Gazette

Change remains only constant for consulting industry – gulfnews.com

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When Grant Thornton wanted to devise its latest global strategy, the accounting and advisory group did not call in a team from McKinsey or Bain. It organised a 72-hour online “jam” for its 38,500 staff worldwide.

“It was essential to us that we didn’t present a strategy that was done in a darkened room by people sitting round a table,” says Francesca Lagerberg, head of people and culture, who describes the September jam as “like Facebook on speed”.

When a new chief executive wanted to shake up Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust last year, he asked his 16,000 employees to create a new template for the hospitals’ values, vision and objectives, using a process devised by crowdsourcing specialist Clever Together.

The trust had used traditional consultants before, but Peter Thomond, Clever Together’s managing partner, says that while the outcomes of staff consultations are “not as pretty or as slick” as consultancy strategy documents, “thousands of people write them and the buy-in is massive”. The exercise helped the trust come up with a five-year strategy and a leadership framework called “the Leeds Way”.

Sometimes it seems as though we are all consultants now. The scale, scope and sophistication of networking tools allows organisations to collect ideas and disseminate the results of consultations easily and cheaply.

Many executives are either former consultants, who have fanned out from temples of strategy to run organisations worldwide, or MBA-holders imbued with theoretical and practical knowledge of management. By combining analytical tools, social media and their own expertise, they can afford to be choosier about when they hire consultants and what they pay them for.

The fast-changing nature of business has also made it harder for consulting groups to sell the same strategic frameworks to clients as they used to, as a group of McKinsey consultants, academics and corporate heads of strategy acknowledged in a debate for the 50th anniversary edition of ‘McKinsey Quarterly’, published this autumn.

Michael Jacobides of London Business School told the Quarterly: “When the environment changes profoundly, the maps with which we navigate it may need to shift as well. For instance, from telco to health care to computers, sector boundaries are changing or dissolving, and new business models are redefining the competitive landscape.”

The same deep changes affecting consultants’ clients are affecting the consultancies themselves. That is one explanation for the consolidation at the top of the consulting industry. PwC completed its acquisition of Booz & Co (rebranded Strategy&) this year. Significant acquisition activity also takes place below the radar of daily headline news, where large groups such as Deloitte continue to absorb dozens of boutique companies annually, expanding their expertise.

Smaller consulting groups see opportunity in the changing landscape, too. “Whenever you shift the players in the game, [clients] think: ‘How can I play differently?’,” says Liann Eden, founding partner of Eden McCallum, which operates what it calls a “pure consulting” model, bringing together bespoke teams of independent consultants to tackle clients’ specific needs.

The movement could be characterised as a combination of shift and drift. As demand for some services declines or margins diminish, companies, forced to move into new areas, shift their own position deliberately, or drift into adjacent areas involuntarily.

At the same time, competition both for business — and for deals — is increasing between consulting groups and companies from outside the sector that realise they can offer their industrial expertise as a service.

For example, Cardinal Health, originally a US pharmaceuticals distributor, made a calculated decision to move into management consulting for hospitals, building on its knowledge of health care supply chains and regulations.

Advertising agencies are making use of their knowledge of digital media — and their deep network of corporate customers — to compete with traditional consultants in selling advice about the digital revolution. Publicis’ purchase of the consultancy Sapient will further blur the distinction between the two sectors.

Technological change is a battleground to which most consultants have shifted resources in recent years. Rich Lesser, chief executive of the Boston Consulting Group, established BCG Digital Ventures in January to “help clients build digital products and services”. The company-within-a-company is staffed by what BCG calls a “multidisciplinary group of professionals”.

At almost exactly the same time, Accenture established Accenture Strategy with 8,000 consultants (out of a workforce of 305,000), half of whom are technology strategists and half business strategists. Andy Tinlin, head of Accenture Strategy in the UK, says its consultants’ role has “evolved from being either an adviser or an implementer to being much more a hybrid of the two”.

Companies such as BCG, McKinsey and Bain, among the traditional “strategy houses”, tend not to talk publicly of large technology-based groups such as Accenture and IBM as direct competitors, and vice versa. But it is no surprise that such cross-disciplinary and hybrid teams are proliferating, and starting to bump into each other in the field.

Perhaps only when the tag “digital” is so ubiquitous that it becomes superfluous will it be possible to assess which companies have the best skills and model for the new world.

Tom Rodenhauser, managing director of advisory services at Kennedy Consulting Research & Advisory, describes the technological challenges consultants face as “the four horsemen of the apocalypse”: social media, cloud services, analytics and mobility. But they represent an opportunity as well as a challenge. The fact people are increasingly active on social networks and via mobile devices is as much a societal as a technological transformation. It goes to the heart of how businesses operate.

“When consultants talk about digitisation, what they are really asking is: how are these phenomena affecting the way businesses operate and how can consultants facilitate that? And I don’t know whether they have the answer,” says Rodenhauser.

Even if they do not, they have little to worry about for now. Figures collated by Kennedy for its 2014 Global Consulting Forecast show revenue growth overall accelerated from 3.7 per cent in 2013 to 4.6 per cent this year. A resurgence in merger and acquisition activity and advice, information technology integration and cyber security consulting, and strategy and operations work related to companies’ growth initiatives, has pushed annual revenues in the industry towards $247 billion.

The Big Four accountants-turned-advisory-groups show some of the strongest growth in the top 10 consultancies — a sign perhaps that their bet on becoming large-scale one-stop shops is paying off.

No wonder that against this backdrop of growth in standard consulting services, innovative developments such as crowd-sourced strategy-making seem to pose little threat. BCG’s Lesser says consultants can still offer “deep understanding of economics and competitive advantage, customer needs and rapid technology evolution in many sectors. I don’t see crowdsourcing being able to implement that in a world of resource constraints and intense global competition”. To be fair, neither do the crowdsourcers themselves.

Lagerberg says that once Grant Thornton has examined the outcome of its “jam”, “we may go back to some of these traditional consultants to say: ‘We want you to help us achieve this’”.

Similarly, Thomond at Clever Together says the business world is “always going to need super-high-end brains to solve super-complex problems”. He adds: “We’re not here to eat [consultants’] lunch, we’re here to eat some of the crumbs off the table.”

Yet all those nibbling at the growing consulting pie are hungry for more.

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In Ferguson, businesses look tentatively at rebuilding – USA TODAY

US consumer, business spending data point to slowing growth – Reuters

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(Reuters) – U.S. consumer spending rose modestly in October and a key measure of business spending plans fell for a second straight month, suggesting some slowing in the pace of economic growth.

But the economy remains resilient in the face of faltering global demand. Other data on Wednesday showed consumer confidence approaching a 7-1/2-year high in November and new home sales rising for a third straight month in October.

“We think growth will moderate in the fourth quarter. I’m not reading anything incredibly negative into this,” said Michael Gapen, a senior economist at Barclays in New York.

The Commerce Department said consumer spending, which makes up more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, increased 0.2 percent last month after being flat in September.

Still, the steady gains in consumer spending, supported by falling gasoline prices, should help to prop up growth in the fourth quarter.

In a second report, the Commerce Department said non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft, a closely watched proxy for business spending plans, declined 1.3 percent last month. That followed a 1.3 percent fall in September.

The drop in the so-called core capital goods orders suggested that a sturdy pace of spending on equipment set in both the second and third quarters ebbed early this quarter.

The lackluster reports suggest growth has moderated from the third quarter’s brisk a 3.9 percent annual rate. Fourth quarter GDP estimates range between a 1.4 percent and 3.0 percent rate.

There is, however, reason for optimism. The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index rose to 88.8 this month, the highest reading since July 2007, from 86.9 in October.

A third report from the Commerce Department showed single- family home sales gained 0.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 458,000 units in October.

The dollar was trading near session lows against the euro on the data, while prices for U.S. Treasury debt rose. U.S. stocks were trading lower.

INCREASED CAUTION

Core capital goods shipments, which are used to calculate equipment spending in the GDP measurement, fell 0.4 percent last month, reversing September’s gain.

“We believe that the slowing in orders reflects companies’ increased uncertainty about the impact of slower global growth and stronger dollar on their demand outlook, leaving many to approach capital expenditure plans with increased caution,” said Gennadiy Goldberg, an economist at TD Securities in New York.

A separate report showed the Institute for Supply Management-Chicago Business Barometer declined to 60.8 this month from 66.2 in October.

A sixth report from the Labor Department showed initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 21,000 to a seasonally adjusted 313,000 for the week ended Nov. 22.

The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, remained below 300,000 for an 11th straight week, a sign that the jobs market was improving.

Despite better labor market conditions, income growth remains tepid. Income rose a modest 0.2 percent in October after a similar gain in the prior month, the Commerce Department report on consumer spending showed. With income growth matching consumer spending, the saving rate was unchanged at 5.0 percent.

The moderate pace of consumer spending, combined with falling gasoline prices, kept inflation under wraps. A price index for consumer spending edged up 0.1 percent after a similar gain in September.

In the 12 months through October, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index rose 1.4 percent after advancing by the same margin in September.

Excluding food and energy, prices rose 0.2 percent after gaining 0.1 percent in September. The so-called core PCE price index increased 1.6 percent in the 12 months through October, the largest gain since December 2012.

Both price measures continue to run below the U.S. central bank’s 2 percent inflation target.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Additional reporting by Richard Leong and Chuck Mikolajczak in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

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CAMPUS NEWS – Inspired Speaker Series welcomes two consulting giants at … – Hult News

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Our Inspired Speaker Series in collaboration with the Inspired Leaders Network continued at Hult London Postgraduate this month. First to join us on campus was Phillipe Maso.

Lessons From CEO at AXA

Having played a key role in building the AXA Group for some 15 years, culminating with two years as CEO of AXA Insurance UK, Phillipe’s adaptability, flexibility, and skill at simplifying complex situations has helped forged a compelling leadership philosophy and growing international reputation.

When asked about how he arrived at AXA, Philppe said, “As always, these things don’t happen because they are planned; they happen because you meet opportunities.”

This struck a cord with Jürgen Vleminckx, Bachelor of Business Administration student at Hult London undergraduate campus and President of the Hult Society of Banking, who said, “My takeaway was to keep an open mind, Philippe told us that in a corporate career your path is not necessarily chosen, but that you can influence the start and end point.”

During his talk, Phillipe advocated change, not just in organizations, but in personal careers, “your business life is a very long thing[…]you need to make sure that you introduce change in your career.”

Agent of change

Philippe himself has introduced considerable change over the course of his career and ultimately made the transition from CFO to CEO. During the first two decades of his career, he was responsible for finance, strategy, financial risk, and asset management. Philippe now blurs the lines between financial spokesman, leadership expert, and authority on change management.

Sumit Kumar, a Master of International Marketing student found that Phillipe’s breadth of experience produced some very useful advice. Sumit said, “He explained about the different strategies he used in every company he worked for, and that these will differ depending on culture. It has really boosted my morale; he gave us all some really good tips. I was surprised to hear that a CFO had turned CEO – whatever next!”

Phillipe spent two years in Paris leading the transformation of Aviva-France to a very challenging timescale in the darkest recessionary times. He is now taking the lead position in helping McKinsey and Co., the largest consultancy firm in the world, establish a global insurance practice.

New talent, new thinking

On what keeps him motivated and innovating, Phillipe said, “You need to fuel your engine with new ideas, new thinking…The great thing about McKinsey is I meet a lot of young people. Very bright, probably much brighter than I am, very efficient young people. So this is something that fuels you. A lot.”

He also had surprising insights into the culture of McKinsey, “They are interested in being contradicted; different views and opinions. Which is not something people believe about large consulting firms.”

He went on to debunk more myths around consulting firms saying, “You could imagine that a company like McKinsey is strictly focused on the top line and profitability[…]It’s absolutely not[… ]It’s all about creating an extremely well-performing, well-knowledged, well-connected network worldwide.”

Video highlights from the event

Master of adaptation

The next Inspired Speaker to join us at Hult London was Phil Walker, Chief Operating Officer the blue chip global consulting business, Capgemini. Phil has adapted and evolved his own career to meet the changing nature of work in recent years. He started life as an educationalist, moving seamlessly from being a Partner at PA Consulting to becoming a partner at IBM’s consultancy practice, and culminating in the Chief Operating Officer role at France-based consultancy Capgemini.

Students listened to Phil talk about the changing nature of work and his insights into why consulting will be even more important in the future. They also heard that it’s not all plain sailing for the big consulting companies, and they also will need to adapt and evolve.

A student perspective

Selam Ibrahim, one of our Master of International Business students at the London campus said, “It was a great insight into consultancy. It was useful to see how careers and expertise overlaps within companies as I’m trying to find my niche.” Another MIB student, Pam Dinh, said of the event, “I found Phil easy to relate to, great to hear about his challenges and successes – great networking after the talk which is useful for more informal conversations.”

Related Content:

Read more about our London postgraduate campus or our London undergraduate campus

Find out more about our programs: Bachelor in Business Administration, Master of International Marketing, and Master of International Business

See which speaker, in partnership with the Inspired Speakers Network, will be coming to our London postgraduate campus next

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Obama Threatens to Veto $440 Billion Tax Deal – New York Times

Obama Promises to Veto Pending Deal on Major Business Tax Breaks – New York Times

The Business Tycoons of Airbnb – New York Times

Think local, think Salem on Small Business Saturday – Statesman Journal

Kennedy Evaluates 20 Public Sector HR Consulting Firms, Citing Four with … – Business Wire (press release)

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KEENE, N.H.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Kennedy Consulting Research & Advisory, the leader in market analysis on the consulting profession, announces its release of Human Resources Consulting in the Public Sector, a new report exploring the opportunities and challenges for buyers and sellers of HR services in the global public sector marketplace, focusing on key trends, growth patterns and the competitive landscape.

“The public sector is one of the largest verticals for HR consulting spending and will continue to be a major contributor to HR consulting fee income over the forecast period,” reports Liz DeVito, Associate Director and Lead for HR Consulting Research. “We expect compound annual growth for this market to continue through 2017.”

The Kennedy Vanguard™ of Public Sector HR Consulting Providers, a qualitative assessment featured in Human Resources Consulting in the Public Sector, has identified four firms with sophisticated internal organizations for delivering HR services to the public sector that continually invest in organic and inorganic strategies to deepen their expertise. They are Deloitte, Hay Group, KPMG and The Segal Group.

The report features profiles of 20 leading Public Sector HR Consulting Providers and includes key service strengths and weaknesses, firm focus, and capability maps illustrating each practice’s standing with respect to HR consulting capabilities in benefits, human capital management, and HR transformation, as well as the maturity of their public sector consulting infrastructure.

In addition, Human Resources Consulting in the Public Sector explores market trends in key areas including pensions risk and reform, the human capital crisis, finding and developing new talent and the transformation of public sector HR. Client spending trends and forecasts and HR consulting spend by segment and by geographic region are reviewed, and an overview of a successful large-scale client project in leadership development is also included.

Firms covered in the report are: Accenture; Aon Hewitt; Booz Allen Hamilton; Buck Consultants at Xerox; Cavanaugh Macdonald Consulting; Deloitte; Emergence Growth; Gabriel, Roeder, Smith & Company; Gallagher Benefit Services; Hay Group; Hymans Robertson; IBM; Korn/Ferry International; KPMG; LMI; Mercer; Punter Southall; PwC; The Segal Group; and Towers Watson.

For more information on Kennedy’s Human Resources Consulting in the Public Sector, call 888.259.1500 (+1.603.357 8102) or visit http://ift.tt/11qYZ8X.

About Kennedy Consulting Research & Advisory

A Bloomberg BNA Business

Founded in 1970, Kennedy Consulting Research & Advisory provides accurate and reliable market sizing and forecasts on consulting services world-wide, needs-analysis and vendor profiling for buyers of consulting services, timely and insightful intelligence on the top consulting firms in their respective markets, and operational benchmarks that measure consulting performance.

Kennedy’s research spans multiple service areas, client vertical industries, and geographies. Our analysts provide expert commentary at consulting industry events world-wide, and offer custom research for Management Consulting and IT Services firms.

Kennedy’s advisory services provide results-oriented strategic guidance to buyers and sellers of consulting services.

Our clientele consists of Fortune 500 companies and the most highly regarded professional services firms in the world.

Kennedy’s parent company, Bloomberg BNA, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bloomberg L.P., is a leading source of legal, regulatory, and business information for professionals.

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Why I quit JPMorgan to start a jetpack business – CNNMoney

Year-End Business Advice That Goes Beyond Taxes – Forbes

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This time of year, many business owners think of their accountant as someone who can help with tax planning – figuring out which deductions they must lock in by year end or which moves can qualify them for needed tax credits. Certainly, accountants can help business owners in those areas, and many business owners are meeting with their accountants to do just that.

But limiting your use of an accountant to taxes alone is like taking a piece of bread at an all-you-can-eat buffet. You’re not getting all you can, especially if you have unmet business goals or questions about current business challenges. Business owners who only think of their accountants in terms of taxes miss out on utilizing them as a trusted advisor and someone who can help grow the business and make the owner more money.

“Accountants are the most underused resources that business owners have,” says Brian Hamilton, chairman of Sageworks, a financial information company. “Business owners are so busy making ends meet that they don’t have the time to sit down and analyze financial data.

Others are intimidated by accounting — and accountants. They don’t really know how to make the most of their financial statements and the information in them, but they may be slightly averse to asking questions and admitting that they need help.”

Now is an excellent time to tap the financial knowledge and business experience that your accountant has in order to not only get a good start on 2015, but also to address ways to finish 2014 on a stronger operational note. Many accountants are already meeting with clients for tax planning. For others like Sara L. “Sally” Massagee, a CPA in Hendersonville, N.C., now through the end of February is a slower season for business before tax season hits full force.

Massagee says businesses need to remember that incredible growth doesn’t just happen. “Part of how it happens is knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and capitalizing on the strengths that make a difference while tackling the weaknesses,” she says. “Now is a great time to identify those and understand them heading into the new year.”

Below are 10 ways (besides tax planning) that you can use upcoming meetings with accountants to end 2014 positively and to launch a prosperous 2015. All you have to do is let your accountant know ahead of time that you’d like to learn more about these topics; if they won’t help you, ask for a referral to someone who will.

1. Review year-to-date results and how they compare with the year-ago period to develop an action plan for 2015.


2. Identify or learn more about key performance indicators (KPIs) for your industry or key financial metrics, and set up a way to begin tracking those for your business.


3. Benchmark your recent results against industry peers.


4. Schedule now some quarterly meetings in 2015 to discuss financials in the context of improving profitability, sales, cash flow or all three.


5. Learn how to ensure your business is worth as much as you think it is. Whether you’re planning to sell, pass along to heirs or simply generate enough in coming years to walk away, accountants can help you figure out what to do now to make it happen.


6. Develop a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threat) analysis of your business or an upcoming venture and use that to develop 2015 plans.


7. Identify whether you have the resources to grow your business in 2015 without experiencing cash shortages.


8. Discuss your banking relationships and whether there are any debt covenants or other issues that you’re worried about fulfilling, or whether you need help applying for a bank loan.


9. Examine whether you are getting the return on investment you expected from recently purchased equipment, recently hired employees or recently added business lines.


10. Analyze whether planned purchases, hires or business changes will provide good returns.

With just over five weeks left in the year, you still have some control over 2014, and you certainly can change the course of 2015 with a little planning and financial information.

“This is the stuff that matters,” Massagee says.

Sageworks, a financial information company, collects and analyzes data on the performance of privately held companies and provides accounting, financial analysis, and risk management solutions.

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Montclair resident, freeholder Brendan Gill launches consulting firm – NorthJersey.com

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Brendan Gill

Fresh off successfully managing the reelection campaign of U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, Montclair’s Brendan Gill is looking to take the next step in his career.

That step, Gill recently announced, is opening his own private consulting firm, The BGill Group.

Gill, who also ran successfully for freeholder-at-large this month, told The Montclair Times that he was looking for an opportunity that would make the most out of the experiences he has had in the public sector.

“I just think that the time was right,” Gill said. “It’s something I’ve been thinking about doing for some time … I feel that I’ve acquired, through different elected officials, agencies and campaigns, a lot of experience.”

The BGill Group, Gill said, will be located in Montclair and focus on pubic affairs consulting. Gill, who is chair of the Montclair Democratic County Committee, said that he already has partnerships with businesses in the fields of campaigns, government affairs and public relations.

Among the company’s first customers will be Booker, Gill said, for whom the Montclairite has and will continue to serve as a senior advisor, now in a consulting capacity.

The new role will not include any lobbying, according to Gill, but will instead focus on strategic consulting as opposed to advocacy. Gill, who also ran a reelection campaign for the late U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, said he will likely continue working in campaigns, but only in a consulting capacity.

While ruling out running a potential candidate’s campaign in 2015, Gill vowed to “never say never” when it comes to potentially heading a future campaign.

In the meantime, Gill said that he is focused on his small business, something he believes will also help him as an elected representative at the county level.

Gill said that he has been a proponent of economic development and small business serving as the backbone of Essex County’s economy. By running a small business himself, Gill said that he believes he will be more sensitive to the thoughts and concerns of small-business owners and that the perspective will promote future policies focused on economic prosperity.

Montclair Deputy Mayor Robert Russo, a supporter of Gill’s, said that he thought it was a great idea for Gill to launch a consulting firm.

“Anything he consults on, he’s good at,” Russo said. “He’s been working for about 20 years with two congressmen and two senators. He’s got the experience.”

Contact Andrew Segedin at segedin@northjersey.com

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Outlook | Briefs: Consulting firm puts obesity cost at $2 trillion – Columbus Dispatch

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• Ohio State hospitals debate where best to treat rape victims


• Columbus to focus on 3 ‘hot spots’ to combat infant mortality

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Consulting firm puts obesity cost at $2 trillion

The global cost of obesity has risen to $2 trillion annually — nearly as much as smoking or the combined impact of armed violence, war and terrorism, according to a report released by the McKinsey Global Institute consulting firm. The institute says 2.1 billion people — about 30 percent of the global population— are overweight or obese and that about 15 percent of health-care costs in developed economies are driven by it.

Nevada ranks highest in study of immigrants

A new Pew Research Center study shows that Nevada has the highest proportion of people who have entered the country illegally of any U.S. state, at 7.6 percent of its population. The study looked at illegal-immigration trends over a three-year period ending in 2012. The number of people who entered Nevada illegally fell by 20,000 over that period, according to the Pew analysis, but the state still had about 210,000. California and Texas ranked second and third, respectively.

Index rates treatment of LGBT employees

Wal-Mart improved its treatment of LGBT employees over the past year, nudging the world’s largest retailer closer to companies such as Apple and Goldman Sachs, the Human Rights Campaign said. Wal-Mart scored 90 out of 100, up from 80 last year, in HRC’s 2015 Corporate Equality Index, which judges companies on five benchmarks. Goldman Sachs and Apple were among the record-high 366 companies that scored 100 this year. Exxon Mobil scored a minus 25 in the report.

— From wire reports

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