The most recent articles from Management Consultancy

Quotes of the month

AccountancyAge.com — 2006-06-26T00:00:00.000Z

AccountancyAge.com, Management Consultancy, Monday 26 June 2006 at 00:00:00

Industry leaders comment on consultancy sector this month

'It is vital that the work of hired consultants is rigorously assessed to see if they represent value for money and bring any real benefit to the work of government. That this basic rule is not being followed in a third of cases is hardly reassuring for hard-pressed taxpayers. I have long been concerned about a publicly funded gravy train for consultants and it would seem that it is still very much on track'

Assemblyman John Dallat on the Northern Ireland Audit Office’s revelations about public sector use of consultants in the province

'It's a shame. He's a fantastic bloke. He was gutted the way his personal decision came out and things portrayed nowhere near the truth. He'll be doing things that are going to add value to society. He's not going to retire on a beach'

Capita FD Gordon Hurst on the departure of chairman Rod Aldridge in the wake of the Labour party loans furore

'In 2005, project-based services and software support grew at a greater rate than the overall market average, which has not been the case since 2000'

Kathryn Hale, vice-president of Gartner’s IT services group, on how the trend for growth in outsourcing services changed in 2005

Mercer Delta appoints CEO

James Bennett — 2005-08-25T00:00:00.000Z

James Bennett, Management Consultancy, Thursday 25 August 2005 at 00:00:00

Organisational firm Mercer Delta appoints new chief executive

Organisational consulting firm Mercer Delta has appointed Stephen Redwood as its UK chief executive.

Redwood has replaced Margaret Exley, who has stepped up to UK chairman.

He joined from strategy house McKinsey, where he was a partner responsible for counselling CEOs on leadership agendas, particularly in transitional periods, when taking on new roles, or initiating change programmes. Prior to this he was a partner and global leader of the organisation practice for PricewaterhouseCoopers.

He will be responsible for expanding the business in the UK and helping clients improve their organisational performance.

Redwood has lived and worked in Japan, the US and the UK, and has 17 years' experience as a consultant. He has worked for clients across a wide range of sectors including pharmaceuticals, financial services, aerospace, automotive, manufacturing, chemicals and information services.

Narain appointed head of Parson

James Bennett — 2005-08-04T00:00:00.000Z

James Bennett, Management Consultancy, Thursday 4 August 2005 at 00:00:00

Fastest growing UK consultancy firm appoints new head of financial management group Parson Consulting

Kevin Narain has been appointed managing director of financial management consultancy Parson Consulting, part of the AIM-listed Management Consulting Group – one of the fastest growing firms in the UK.

The MCG, which also owns Proudfoot Consulting, was ranked 13th in Management Consultancy's top 75 firms list and saw it's fee income revenues soar from £89m in 2003 to £119m in 2004. This was mainly on the back of large contracts and continued work on compliance such as Sarbanes-Oxley.

In addition to his new role, Narain will also continue as lead practice director for Parson Europe. In a statement the firm said Narain's joint position would give him a 'very influential role in the international growth of Parson Consulting'.

Narain joined Parson in October 2003 from AtosKPMG Consulting where he was director in the world-class finance group. Prior to that he spent eight years working for the entertainment, media and communications group of Price Waterhouse management consultancy services.

Narain qualified as a chartered accountant with the ICAEW.

Commenting on his new role Narain said: 'This business is full of challenges and I relish the opportunity to continue to grow this dynamic company.

'We are currently working with 15 FTSE 100 companies, and have grown 10-fold since we started in the UK two years ago. This is a fantastic time to take up the helm.'

Kevin Parry, chief executive of the MCG, said: 'Kevin has over 15 years experience in financial management consultancy and we are delighted that he will now lead the Parson UK practice as well as continue to oversee our delivery capability in Europe.'

Consultants rewarded for professionalism

James Bennett — 2005-06-07T09:43:00.000Z

James Bennett, Management Consultancy, Tuesday 7 June 2005 at 09:43:00

A dozen senior management consultants recognised for their management consultancy skills

A dozen senior management consultants have been recognised for their outstanding management consultancy skills - and all 12 are from the same company.

The 12 individuals, all from AIM-listed Cornwell Management Consultants, have been awarded Certified Management Consultant status in recognition of their ability to deliver 'independent, professional, advice to clients' - an award given by the Institute of Management Consultancy, a branch of the Chartered Management Institute.

The CMI said that the award highlighted the 'importance that clients are now attaching to both cost-effective advice and measures of professionalism, objectivity and competence'.

In a statement it said that CMC is the 'only' international recognition of consulting competence. 'It differentiates consultants, identifying those who have relevant experience and proven knowledge', the statement added.

The 12 consultants handed the award now brings the total number of employees at Cornwell with CMC status to 50.

Jonathan Broadhurst, managing director of Cornwell, said: 'clients are able, and increasingly willing, to question the credentials of their consultants, so it is essential that individuals and their practices adhere to a set of objective standards to ensure they are able to meet expectations and deliver on every promise.'

To achieve CMC status, the 12 consultants had to go through an assessment process which required the presentation of evidence to demonstrate competency in management consultancy processes. They also had to show evidence of the skills demanded in their area of technical specialisation.

Lynda Purser, director of IMC, said: 'In such a competitive environment, CMC raises the bar of the management consultancy profession and allows benchmarking for both clients and employers.'

The CMC programme is open to individuals with at least three years' consultancy experience, including full ownership for delivery of a project.

Working Overseas: Foreign affairs

Mary Huntington — 2002-05-17T16:56:41.000Z

Mary Huntington, Management Consultancy, Friday 17 May 2002 at 16:56:41

The increasing globalisation of both the industry and its clients means that overseas work is a fact of life for many consultants - and their families. Mary Huntington takes a look at the help and preparation needed to make a spell abroad a happy experience.

If someone offered you their business card in Singapore, carefully held by two corners, would you know what to do? Or would you know what colour shirt is a no-no in Denmark? There's no reason why you should - but if you were due to work on a project in one of those countries, you should certainly make it your business to find out.

With increasing globalisation, cross-cultural contact is on the increase.

Research undertaken at Cranfield Management School two years ago, for example, looked at four categories of international workers - ex-patriates, short-term assignees, international commuters and frequent fliers. It found that the numbers involved in all four categories are rising. Says Cranfield's Dr Christine Communal: "The number of ex-pats is very gently growing but the fastest growing category by far is the short-term assignee, followed by the other two categories, which show similar growth."

She says the research also focused on the problems associated with the different types. For the ex-pats questioned, for example, the issues often concerned the partner's career. "Short-term assignees found it difficult to keep a healthy work/life balance and international commuters experienced burn out from the travelling."

So how do people prepare for overseas work? Obviously, there are dedicated courses like that in cross-cultural communication run by Communal at Cranfield but what of the employers themselves? Approaches vary. IBM employees going on an assignment of more than three months get a formal briefing with a dedicated mobility representative, a "look see" trip linked with a third-party relocation agent, to look at housing, schools, doctors and so on and provide a cultural briefing, and access to a number of cultural diversity websites where they can get more information. Typical assignment length is two to three years, says EMEA international assignments service centre manager Anne Conroy, but there is also a short term foreign service plan for periods of between two and 18 months. "The majority of the cultural stuff is outsourced. Everyone going on a formal international assignment is allocated a work location manager, responsible for ensuring that business practices and so on are understood."

For CSC much depends on the individual and the length of project or role undertaken. CSC's head of employee relations, Chris Jennings, says: "We assess culturally where an employee is going - some countries are more extreme culturally and from a safety aspect. For example, when you go to Asia Pacific, the cultural issues are very different to those in Germany.

"There are some cases where we deliver input about a destination - it depends on the individual and how worldly they are, in terms of travel and so on. Some people say 'what are you going to do about it', while others find out for themselves. I tend to point people in the direction they need to go rather than spell it out for them."

When he went to Singapore for a period, he says, he talked to a number of colleagues who had worked there before he went. "The protocols about how you greet people and deal with them, and the way business is done are very different from Europe. And as a representative of the company you want the people you are dealing with to think that you understand their culture."

For CSC the practice of sending people abroad to work both supplies a capability required for a contract, and a way to develop people with potential, says Jennings.

One such is Casper Malig, CSC's account director for BAE Systems, Avionics.

Malig moved to the UK from his native Denmark two years ago. "One of the drivers was the opportunity to develop myself personally. The UK IT marketplace is much more mature around outsourcing than in Scandinavia so I came here to learn to understand large scale outsourcing contracts," he says. The move was not a difficult one, he adds. "CSC HR helped with relocation, work permits, tax numbers and so on. That was a huge help - dealing with all that yourself would be very frustrating. Having the backing of the company you work for is very important." Malig thinks the biggest problem in moving to another country is the language barrier. "But for many Scandinavians moving to the UK is pretty easy as we learn English from an early age.

Italy, Spain or Germany would be more difficult." However, he says, it takes some time to get up to speed in the social setting where you are not talking about work: "You need to know what is going on in British society but that comes with time."

His girlfriend, who gave up her job to accompany him, has found employment here too. "That is extremely important," says Malig. "The other partner has to be settled too."

Jennings agrees. "On long term contracts, in my experience, it is not the employee who is the issue but the family. The employee comes to work in the CSC office every day, with a sense of belonging. But the spouse may have had to give up work, may want a job or not and needs support."

Sue Sursham, resource manager for the consultancy practice of Schlumberger Sema, says the firm puts effort into getting good spouse networks going to make sure that employees' families settle in well on overseas postings.

Since the Schlumberger takeover, overseas work has become a growing trend for staff. "Projects can be anything from four weeks to two years, although the average is probably six months." Assignees normally work with a team of local people and would be briefed on cultural issues by local managers, she adds. "Language can be an issue and if they haven't got those skills we help with that."

Cap Gemini Ernst & Young's Bob Scott has just returned to the UK after a series of global roles (most recently as relationship manager for Siebel Systems). He says proficiency in a second language is going to become increasingly important. "Learning French was a target for me," he says.

Scott thinks both project and client related overseas work and role specific secondment-based work is on the increase. "Consultancies are becoming more global and clients are demanding more global solutions as opposed to locally implemented ones. That is the key driver."

The standardised methods, tools and profiles of a global practice like CGE&Y facilitates movement between countries. "Mobility is positively encouraged," says Scott. A group mobility site on the firm's global intranet advertises international opportunities while a site called International Assignment offers help and advice both to people going to work overseas, covering legal, tax and other issues, and to those arriving to take up a post. But it is not just about self-help through the intranet. Says Scott: "Third party firms provide advice before the posting and day-to-day help on location, and training programmes like the Onboarding Process helps acclimatise people to the local entity they are joining." One way to find out about the cultural working practices of a country, says Scott, is to contact colleagues who are already there. "The names of people already on secondment are posted on the intranet so that you can call them before you go," he adds.

Scott himself attended a course at the firm's International Business School, west of Paris, which was launched in 1997 to develop future global managers. With multi-cultural training specialist Canning, the school developed a programme to help its managers understand how people from other cultures behaved. Says Scott: "An eclectic mix of different cultures came together for four weeks during a nine month period. In between we worked in international teams on a project, alongside our day to day work." This taught him much about different cultures and ways of working, he says. Content specific elements of the course, such as international law, and language training also played their part in equipping him for the global roles he undertook over the next four years.

But, in the excitement of new places, he warns, don't forget to plan for your return. Having a mentor at home with whom you can have regular dialogue, and who can help you identify a suitable role for your comeback, is essential. "Coming back to a very different firm from the one I had left (it had doubled in size with the merger) would have been very difficult without that point of contact."

WHEN IN ROME

While language is often the most obvious difference between nationalities, there are many other cultural differences which may only become clear if you live in a country. Cap Gemini Ernst & Young's Bob Scott stresses the importance of being careful with idioms when abroad: He recalls a client workshop in France, where a French colleague was asked whether he would like to take responsibility for a piece of work. "He said: 'Oui, pourquoi pas?', he says. "And to the UK and Dutch guys present that 'yes, why not' smacked somewhat of reluctance. But to the French, that meant 'absolutely, I'd love to do it'." And while some nationalities are closer in terms of culture and go well together, like Denmark and the UK, others, like the Far East and Europe or America, have very different cultural environments. Says CSC's Chris Jennings: "In Asia Pacific, Chinese business people will offer you their business cards, holding a corner in each hand so that you can read the text. You are supposed to take them by the other two corners and read them, then lay the cards out on the table in front of you, in the order that the people are facing you. It is both practical and respectful - you don't forget anyone's name that way." He has seen some Americans who can't handle this type of ceremony, he says. "They come in and deal the cards across the table. They don't tend to think about the 'when in Rome' thing."

Jennings has worked with a number of Americans over the years. He recalls a small faction who worked at CSC and banded together socially. "I remember when they presented us with a long list of phrases that Brits use and they didn't understand - things like 'donkey's years' and 'fortnight'. We really are separated by a common language," he says.

Some feel that the American view of Europe as a homogenous whole stems from their tendency not to travel outside the US. "You very often hear about a US person running "Europe", says CGE&Y's Scott, "but it is surprising, really. I have worked in America and New York is very different from Detroit or San Francisco. You would have thought that given the cultural diversity they have there, they would recognise that there are different cultures not only in Europe but even in the UK."

Some, however, have a hazy idea. Says CSC's Casper Malig: "When I worked in California, I found the Americans very opinionated - they had a very clear perception of Denmark as a small communist country." He has found working in the UK less of a culture shock, although he was surprised by the long hours worked in the UK. "In Denmark there is a better balance between work and life," he says. He also finds our penchant for red or pink shirts odd: "You simply don't see that colour in Scandinavia - shirts are white, blue, green but you cannot buy pink or red."

ERP skills: The ups and downs of an ERP career

Mary Huntington — 2002-04-05T16:00:29.000Z

Mary Huntington, Management Consultancy, Friday 5 April 2002 at 16:00:29

So you're an ERP consultant. How do you see your future? Are you worried about the way things are going?

After all, ERP has had a chequered career. After the heady days of the 90s it suffered post-Y2K blues, with many commentators saying that its day was done: costly and lengthy implementations had been carried out at most of the big blue chips and e-commerce was the new buzzword. The main vendors began to reinvent themselves, moving towards a new world of extended enterprise applications, such as supply chain, CRM and e-collaboration. And many of those who had stampeded into the ERP sector worried about their jobs.

So where are we now? Recession, exacerbated by the events of 11 September, has meant that many companies are tightly controlling costs, laying off staff and putting investment on hold. But, at the same time, vendors like SAP and PeopleSoft are seeing growth. Alastair McGill, marketing director at the latter, says the company's fourth quarter and year end figures for 2001 registered a 19% increase in revenue. For SAP sales increased by 17% with licence revenues up by 5%. And further down the food chain, things don't look so bad either. Steve Kirk, operations director of extended ERP solutions provider Frontstep, which sells its Syteline product to the mid-sized manufacturing sector, says: "After two tough years for the sector which have shaken out the market a bit, we've just had our best quarter ever. We see a slow upturn ahead." So what does the future hold for the ERP consultant? A recent report from research firm IDC gives ground for optimism. It predicts significant growth in the Western European market for services around ERP applications, from $15bn in 2001 to $24bn by 2005.

Says Dominique Raviart, senior research analyst for IDC EMEA: "Last year there was a lot of talk about the end of ERP services and many consultants were out of work at the beginning of 2001. But we see solid growth in this field. A lot of large enterprises in Europe have implemented ERP systems already but there is much to be done in terms of application management, integration and extensions into e-commerce, private marketplaces and supply chain." He sees opportunities for ERP consultants in service organisations like consultancies, end-users, who like to have someone inhouse to finetune business processes, and the manufacturers themselves.

However, he warns, this is a maturing marketplace: "It is growing but will do so less and less."

Mary-Sue Rogers, who runs PricewaterhouseCoopers' PeopleSoft practice in EMEA and is also involved in Oracle and SAP work through her role as global head of human capital solutions, is seeing pretty constant demand in the UK ERP marketplace, although "it is not nearly as booming as it was pre-Y2K or even pre-11 September." Work is a good mixture of large engagements and tactical point solutions, where clients want to maximise and extend their investment, she says. "Oracle, SAP and PeopleSoft have all produced significant new releases in the last 18 months so there is quite a lot of upgrade work and extensions to maximise what is there." She thinks there will be continuing demand for ERP skills. "All the analysts are anticipating growth, not the intergalactical growth of three to four years ago, but still very healthy growth over the next three to five years."

Andrew Munday, head of solutions marketing at SAP, says: "The burning issues in most sectors over the last 18-24 months were CRM and supply chain management. But as marketplaces became much more competitive in 2001, with some areas going into recession and certainly since 11 September, we have seen a slight refocusing in terms of basic business strategy.

Many organisations are going back to their original ERP implementations to see if they can maximise effectiveness, strategically improve processes and drive out more costs."

He says SAP has never really moved out of the ERP space, pointing out that while its marketing activities focus more on e-business, collaboration, CRM and supply chain management than ERP, the starting point for any organisation has to be getting the latter in place.

But, the fact that most big corporates have already done this means that the big players are now competing with second-tier vendors for the SME market. SAP is planning a major push in Europe into this sector, says Munday. "ERP systems are becoming more attractive to smaller companies because of the likes of hosted applications and because the reduction in implementation times of ERP has made it a much more attractive proposition for smaller players."

This has had a knock-on effect in terms of the kind of consultants SAP employs. "There is a greater demand for people to be able to show experience and articulate solutions in the ERP space in specific industry environments.

A lot of our clients expect help and guidance in building their business strategy, on what opportunities ERP can bring to them and the best way to go about implementation: i.e where's the quick return on investment and the quick business improvement."

Munday is optimistic about the future for ERP consultants, citing the 100 new clients SAP added to its UK base last year as a driver. "I think there is higher demand for good, broad skilled, experienced consultants now and that will continue to grow as ERP is deployed to smaller organisations," he says. SAP also has designs on the Asia-Pacific area and Munday anticipates the use of Europe-based consultants to develop local skill-sets there.

SAP expects its own consultants to have the ability to be flexible in terms of personal development because the environment is changing so rapidly.

Says Munday: "We are moving from an intensely focused ERP world within an enterprise to Internet, e-business and collaborative working. These are all mindsets in implementing software solutions that require change in the way you view what you are doing to do it most effectively. So flexibility and the ability to develop fairly quickly as new ideas come into play in the marketplace are certainly in high expectancy today."

Peter Koerting is head of Deloitte Consulting's technology group in Germany, with responsibility for ERP, CRM and supply chain development services.

He sees many opportunities for ERP consultants: "A lot of clients would like to jump on the e-train but find that their ERP legacy systems are not in the shape necessary to sell a product over the web or do a pan-European supply chain initiative. For example, there are quite a number of companies out there that say to the market, yes, we are fully on SAP, but when you look behind the scenes they have 20 different SAP instances, incompatible with each other. Different material numbering systems mean that a product number can differ in the UK and Germany. If that is the case how can you set up a website and sell your products over the Internet?"

In addition, says Koerting, companies involved in mergers and acquisitions often find that they have incompatible systems and different software releases, so that integration work is demanded.

"There is a market for new technologies and we are trying to get our share of that but there is also a huge bulk of traditional ERP work to be done. Traditional ERP consultants will have work for some years. For instance, a recent SAP Germany meeting revealed that there are about 220 clients still running R/2 - that is an upgrade market in itself." Such companies would be well advised not just to do a technical update but also to get rid of old processes, which would hinder later incremental initiatives such as CRM or supply chain, as well, he says. The approach used by the majority of clients in the past was strictly functional and modular, he says. "What they didn't look at was a complete process, like a make to order process. They chopped into five individual pieces an ERP system which logically belongs together, so can you expect their systems to work seamlessly together?"

The changing environment means that the days of the functional consultant are numbered, he adds. "Five or 10 years ago, if you knew the purchasing functionality within SAP, for example, you were the purchasing hero and high utilisation and chargeability by clients was guaranteed. Now clients expect that consultants will bring a good process understanding to the table, how purchasing fits into the overall procurement process in a make to order process and so forth, and understanding of their industry. After all there are some interesting differences between a consumer business, an automotive supplier and a healthcare company," he says. The ideal consultant, therefore, is industry oriented, process thinking and knowledgeable about an ERP package and what to do to get maximum benefit out of it, he says.

CRM and supply chain management are hot areas for Deloitte at the moment, and as clients want neutral advice on vendor selection in a confusing marketplace, the firm is breeding a type of supply chain consultant with understanding of many packages. Says Koerting: "Obviously they would specialise in one, whether i2, SAP, Manugistics or whatever, but understand the others as well so that they could discuss the pros and cons of different packages." At the implementation stage, of course, he says, a different mix of consultants who specialise in that particular package is called for.

Client demands have affected recruitment, adds Koerting. "Five years ago you could have two very knowledgeable people on a project and stuff it with more junior people who would grow on the back of the account.

Clients do not accept that any more. They want smaller, more educated teams who can hit the ground running: they would rather have five very good people than two very good people and eight average ones."

PwC's Rogers agrees. "Clients want people who have been there and done it, mature consultants with length and depth of experience. To that end we have reduced graduate numbers and are looking much more at the experienced hire market." The skills in demand vary by package, she says, depending on where they are selling and where their strengths are. "In SAP, for example, we are looking for implementation experience in SAP portals, mySAP.com, employee self-service, and procurement. In PeopleSoft, its CRM, as its new applications are seeing good uptake in the market."

She looks for what she calls "50-50 people", who combine good technical understanding of how you put in a portal, for example, with understanding of the business context. "Such people can sit comfortably in either a process business discussion or a technical discussion. We are still looking for deep architecture and technical skills but the majority of our demand is for 50-50 people in the newer areas."

SAP and Oracle practice Mi Services is very busy, says Julian Peters, principal consultant in SAP and supply chain management, "but not in the traditional sense of 'we've got seven projects worth £2m'. A lot of companies have the backbone and want optimisation and additional peripheral functionality, such as supply chain, CRM and business information warehousing."

Peters sees a continuing role for ERP consultants. "The installed base is a living beast that needs maintaining, and with new functionality and upgrades too there is always going to be need for consultants - but perhaps not quite so many of them."

The firm is always on the look out for good people - Peters himself joined four months ago with a number of others - and insists on a mixture of systems and business experience.

He left Druid 18 months ago to join a dotcom with a web-based HR offering and when that went down the tubes, decided to move back into consultancy.

So how easy was it to get a job at the back end of 2001? "I had some options but a number of companies I talked to suddenly went into headcount freezes.

I felt there were options out there but I know people who have been made redundant from ERP consultancies who are not just walking into jobs in a few days as a lot of people used to. They are having to fight for them." He sees that as a reflection of the recession: "It is a buyer's market," he says. "There are lots of people looking for work."

PeopleSoft's McGill agrees. "At the moment the supply side of the market is more buoyant than it has been, allowing us to acquire some very talented people with a lot of experience."

From the technical consulting angle PeopleSoft is looking for people who have experience in Internet architectures, he says. "We are also looking for people with application area expertise in HR, financials, people and supply chain. We expect growth in 2002 to be around CRM, supply chain management and payroll. So the consultants we have taken on reflect those expectations."

For recruitment consultancy Millennium, the most active recruitment area involves SAP, says MD Philip Keet. "We are seeing quite a lot of demand for SAP people from the end-user community and consultancies," he says.

Andrew Roberts, a recruitment consultant specialising in ERP with management consultancies at Prism, says: "The demand isn't there as it was 12 months ago but perhaps that is a reflection of the economic climate as much as anything. People with good skills do get jobs and are still in demand."

Nicolas Mabin is director of recruitment for Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, which provides implementation and outsourced services. For CGE&Y current hotspots are Siebel and Oracle, says Mabin, but more generally he definitely sees a career for people in ERP, either in terms of development and/or maintenance of systems. "The continuing success of companies like SAP and Siebel suggest there is more work to be done in ERP, so there is definitely somewhere to go from here but it involves learning new skills: the profile has changed in terms of exposure to extended ERP," he says.

And it is the desire for extended applications that is helping to keep ERP alive and kicking, says Frontstep's Kirk. "People realise that to implement web based applications you have to have ERP in the background to make sure you can deliver what you sell. You can't move forward without it."

Clients agree. Mark Barnett, supply chain director at The Consortium for Purchasing and Distribution, says: "ERP skills are still in demand.

You have to run the business with a reliable piece of software dealing with the basics. Unless processes are integrated effectively, there is no point in having the bells and whistles. I see a very big place for ERP solutions, from SAP down to Sage."

E-PROCUREMENT DELIVERS FOR CPD

The Consortium for Purchasing and Distribution is an electronic data exchange supplying goods to schools, colleges, local authorities and private companies, in the UK and abroad. Its customers can access 30,000 different products, from stationery to food.

Its central financial and distribution operations run on System21 ERP software from Geac Enterprise Solutions. And over the last three years solutions from Geac's commerce.connect series of applications have been introduced. These have extended the use of System21 to both suppliers and customers, improving performance in terms of placing orders on the web, customer self-service, on-line purchasing and supplier management. A more comprehensive "E Procurement 4 Free" service has been provided for larger customers.

"Some e-procurement systems are very expensive to install and integrate and still may not provide real-time data," says Mark Barnett, supply chain director at The Consortium. "Because our approach is effectively an extension to our ERP system, this is not the case with EP4free."

ONLINE RECRUITMENT SUITS SAFEWAY

Safeway, the UK's fourth largest supermarket retailer, is to manage its whole recruitment process online, using the PeopleSoft 8 eRecruit package. Safeway has over 91,000 UK employees, and after research into how the HR function, managers and employees spent their time, and scrutiny of the recruitment process, it decided that a move to online processes would make it more efficient and effective.

Traditionally, each store has handled its own recruitment but, under the new system, all recruitment is to be handled electronically from a single centre in Warrington, to bring about standardisation and consistency and free up in-store HR staff for more strategic activities.

Open from 8am to 8pm, the centre has a freephone number to handle store and applicant enquiries. Applications and vacancies are handled by the web-based system. It is currently handling over 9,000 applications. PeopleSoft's HRMS is live in 100 of Safeway's 500 stores and other applications, such as employee self-service, are set to follow.

UTILISING ERP AT YORKSHIRE WATER

In 2000 Yorkshire Water decided to replace its disparate legacy systems with SAP R/3 ERP software. During the implementation, the team recognised that the core system was not exactly user-friendly for ad-hoc procurement users, and looked around for a suitable solution. According to Neil Wimbush, business change leader at Yorkshire Water, the release of SAP's Business-to-Business Procurement offering at that time proved most opportune. As a result, four months before go-live, the component was added to the R/3 implementation process.

The project, supported by PricewaterhouseCoopers and SAP partner Logica Team 121, was completed on time and to budget.

Initially, Yorkshire Water used BBP to maintain the efficiency of its internal procurement processes via the company intranet. The next phase was to pilot an e-procurement solution via the Achilles Marketplace, an e-marketplace for the utility industry. The pilot proved there were business benefits to be gained and limited rollout of the Achilles solution began in September 2001.

Training - Learning to work together

Mary Huntington — 2002-02-27T10:19:44.000Z

Mary Huntington, Management Consultancy, Wednesday 27 February 2002 at 10:19:44

Working with people from other cultures can be enriching - but it can also be frustrating. Mary Huntington reports on a course that teaches the principles of cross-cultural communication and understanding.

As organisations become increasingly global and internationally diverse, we are much more likely to work with people of other nationalities than we were 20 years ago. Moreover, international experience is highly valued. People actively seek ex-patriate assignments to enhance their careers. Short-term assignments and frequent international travel are often the norm for consultants, while those not working abroad may have some responsibility for a country other than their own. But the cultural differences involved add an extra dimension to the process of managing and consulting - and can cause difficulties and misunderstandings.

A course run by Cranfield School of Management addresses these issues.

And the demand for it, either as an open course or tailored to specific company requirements, demonstrates the growing corporate awareness of the value of cross-cultural facility among staff.

Dr Christine Communal, who designed the course with colleagues Dr Hilary Harris and Savita Kumra three years ago, says it was prompted by the increasing numbers of overseas MBA students at the college. "This year the ratio reached 50/50," she says. "It creates very different dynamics in the classroom when you have that sort of mix of professionals and managers with totally different cultural and national backgrounds. We created the course, as an elective, initially to get the MBA students to work together better - a lot of their work is organised in learning teams, which are, in effect, multicultural teams."

The course proved very successful, she says, and the college decided to offer it to the wider market. Last year it ran twice in open format and was tailored quite a number of times for individual companies. "We have seen incredible demand for it," says Communal. Companies interested in the course have often just acquired a business abroad or have been through or are planning a merger or joint venture, she says. "Increasingly companies want their salesforces to go through it in order to improve their performance abroad, or an organisation wants to market across borders or develop a more European or global mindset, perhaps implementing a European strategy. There is still huge diversity within Europe so they need to be aware of all the sensitivities." The format of the course changes to meet these differing needs. Sometimes a conference format is more suitable than the standard two to three day short course.

Says Communal: "The workforce is becoming internationally diverse and there is a requirement that people have an international mindset. But many are not too sure what that means." She adds: "One of the problems is that because we have the same technology across the planet, travel is so easy and companies compete globally, increasingly we assume that people can work together without problems. We assume that it will be easy and enriching to work with people from different cultural backgrounds.

But that isn't the case and this assumption of globalisation means that people tend not to understand or appreciate cultural differences - and they get a big shock."

She cites as an example a consultant who has carried out an assignment in the UK for different clients so successfully that he is chosen to carry out the work abroad. "When he gets there, though, everything that he has applied before in terms of communicating with people and implementing culture change doesn't work. That's the culture shock - and it can be very frustrating."

The key element of the Cranfield course, she says, is that it is culture generic, focusing on the general principles underpinning successful interccultural communication. "You can read up about management in Japan, for example, but you can't avoid every pitfall. And the increasingly diverse workforce means you are bound to meet people whose culture you don't understand.

So what do you do? You use the basic principles of respecting and understanding differences, raising tolerance levels, dissociating the individual from the culture and avoiding the stereotype."

The Cranfield course comprises three steps, she says. The first is to raise awareness so that attendees understand themselves and their own culture. "Most of the time people are unaware of their own cultural background," says Communal. "Like fish who are not aware of the water in which they swim but become uncomfortable if the temperature is changed or salt added, for example."

She asks attendees to reflect on their first work experience, what they learnt from their parents, and who their role models were. "Then they begin to see how they have been influenced in their attitudes to work," she says.

The second phase of the course attempts to give attendees tools and frameworks so that they can quantify culture rather than simply see it as "a black box". Says Communal: "We talk about the dimensions of culture. Some are very individualist while others are a lot more collectivist." In a more individualist culture such as that of the US, she says, people do not see themselves as responsible for the welfare of brothers or sisters, for example. Their primary responsibility is to take care of themselves.

"In a more collectivist culture, individuals see themselves as belonging to a group first and will defend the interests of that group." Scandinavian and Asian cultures tend towards this pole.

Another useful framework for management, she says, is "power distance", which concerns the distance between someone at the top of an organisation and the bottom in terms of hierarchy, respect and how accessible people are. Once people have been given such frameworks they have a language, the tools to talk, she adds.

The last stage of the course looks at how to reconcile cultural differences.

"If you look at polarisation between individualism and collectivism, such as an American and a Chinese consultant working together, how do they find a way of doing it that suits them without frustrating them?," says Communal. "Reconciling involves looking at a range of ways of doing things and creating something new that will encompass the best of both worlds," she says. "To do this you need to be quite creative and innovative and you need to have raised awareness to be able to talk about it in a non-threatening way with people who might be at opposite ends of the scale. It is not about compromise - you are not giving up something but creating something new."

In practice, the course includes coaching in cross-cultural communication, verbal and non-verbal, exercises in cross-cultural negotiations and looks at the dynamics of multi-cultural teams and inter-cultural marketing.

The techniques used include experiential activities such as role plays and simulations, lecturing and straight delivery, reflection and visioning.

"We get people to reflect on the links between what they have learnt and their work situation," says Communal. "And we ask people to imagine how it feels to work well in a multicultural team. We encourage them to practice the techniques they have learnt and report back."

There is a lot of sharing of experience, she says. "People like the opportunity to say what has happened to them in their career in a safe way." The size of the group is important here - Communal likes to have a maximum of 20 people. "There is a lot of sharing, learning and listening - you can't do that with large numbers, you lose the quality and trust within the group," she says.

Role plays which simulate culture shock are a useful prompt, she adds, often allowing people to open up about deep frustration. "Often they say 'this is exactly what happened at work and I can't believe I reacted in the same way'."

For Communal the rewards come when she sees results among attendees.

"On the last course I ran I felt one or two individuals were near breaking point in their jobs, working almost constantly with other nationalities and finding it extremely stressful. They were very tense at the beginning but as the course went on they began to challenge themselves and in the reflections saw ways of doing it. At the end they felt a lot more confident."

Ironically, it is often the people with the greatest experience and cultural sensitivity who want to come on the course. "They realise that it is so important and has such a deep effect on the management of people and they want to learn more. One of the issues is how to get to the people who need it most, who are not aware of it," she says. "The ones who totally dismiss the need for cross-cultural understanding are often the most destructive in organisations or multicultural teams."

Mary Huntington is a freelance journalist

A QUESTION OF ATTITUDE

Cranfield's Communal says work and humour are powerfully associated in the UK. She cites a case-study used on the course, which begins with an interview extract with a British manager: "At the beginning of the decade, our medium-sized British company was taken over by a Dutch Group.

Two Dutch directors came over to meet our management team. We were all a bit anxious about the takeover. At first, we were all sitting in silence at the meeting. One of the Dutch directors was acting chairperson. Then, somebody told a joke and people started laughing. Eventually, we realised that the Dutch looked upset so everybody went silent and the Dutch chairperson said: 'No jokes please, this is work'."

Communal says there are a number of questions here for people on the course to consider: What assumptions do British managers and Dutch managers make about telling jokes? The atmosphere in the boardroom. The implications of this first encounter for the integration of the British company within the Dutch Group. How this could have been avoided?

She comments: "Long after the incident, the British manager still recalled the incident with shock and disbelief. Indeed, one of the characteristics of communication is that once it has occurred, it is irreversible and impacts on future interactions. However, communication goes both ways, and the behaviour of the British manager in the boardroom had a lasting impact on the Dutch. Had they made a mistake in acquiring a company in Britain whose managers seemed so unprofessional?"

She adds: "To redress this situation, it is essential to establish that the incident is a cross-cultural one. Indeed, the behaviour of the British and that of the Dutch is perfectly normal and justified. Humour is a good thing at work in Britain, while it is more appropriate after working hours in the Netherlands. The cultural assumptions of 'appropriate behaviour' are different and this is the source of difficulties. This realisation should allow decentring the incident without blaming a particular individual or group.

"Unfortunately, cross-cultural misunderstandings are not always conscious. They then become extremely difficult to manage. Effective cross-cultural communication therefore requires a strong sense of self awareness and awareness of one's own cultural bias, a good measure of tolerance - and a touch of carefully chosen and timed sense of humour!"

Lessons from the leaders

Liesbeth Evers — 2002-02-27T10:14:19.000Z

Liesbeth Evers, Management Consultancy, Wednesday 27 February 2002 at 10:14:19

Often ignored by the board, IT managers are now being given responsibility for staff - a daunting prospect for some. Liesbeth Evers reports on a conference designed to give them leadership expertise.

According to readers of Management Consultancy's sister publication Network News, IT and network managers are typically ignored by the board despite the massive influence of their roles on the success of the business.

Increasingly, though, network managers are being asked to adopt a more managerial role, often being given responsibility for a number of junior IT staff. But for network managers, many of whom come from a strictly techie background, the prospect of a managerial position will be a daunting one.

To overcome this, IT group Impact recently invited leadership experts and senior IT staff to swap views on how to make a difference at boardroom level, and lead and create "winning teams".

Speaking at the conference, David Jones, chief information officer at utility company Scottish Power, said the Internet had brought IT to the attention of the boardroom but had also led to conflict between traditional corporate IT and specific IT services used for business goals.

Jones thought that the best way to eliminate the friction between the two was to create separate entities for both functions. At Scottish Power, corporate IT is now strictly internal, while new projects are delivered by a joint venture with an established consultancy.

To motivate his staff, Jones used a radical management technique. He fired all 260 members of the IT department, including himself, and asked everyone to apply for the job they really wanted.

"A leader who has got the right vision is invincible, I told the unions. We have got to change or die. I only lost one senior IT manager who didn't believe in the vision. All the others stayed on," he said.

The unlearning process

Adrian Gilpin, director of the Institute of Human Development, threw down the gauntlet by advising IT managers to "unlearn" everything they had picked up from leadership courses. He said that in the split second when something goes wrong, there are infinite ways to respond.

"In that moment we make a choice. How you feel determines what you do next," he said, adding that good leaders understand "how to make people feel; how to keep believing against all odds".

Leadership expert John van Maurik took a different approach. "You have got to 'do' to be a leader," he argued. He set out leadership qualities in a long list of goals and characteristics. "It comes down to choosing focus for the areas where we can grow," he said.

One conference attendee described Gilpin's take on leadership as an emotional approach and van Maurik's as a more logical perspective. "When I joined Impact, I thought along the lines of a logical approach, but now I am leaning more towards the emotional approach," he explained.

Roger Ellis, managing director of consultancy firm Black Raven, maintained that leadership couldn't be learned from a book. "You have to be born with leadership, though you can perhaps refine it," he said.

Van Maurik said that the two approaches were not contradictory. "I believe there are areas of leadership that can be taught," he said. "I agree with what Gilpin said, but we can drill down to detail what we have to do."

Best behaviour

But Gilpin disagreed, arguing that it was impossible to learn behaviour.

"Choices at times of pressure are automatic by-products of what goes on at a higher level. You cannot change unless you make these changes part of your values. From there, they will automatically drill down to behaviour," he commented.

Francois Pienaar, captain of the first multi-racial South African rugby team and guest speaker at the conference, said he inspired his team with his belief in the political changes in South Africa. This gave the team such a spark of enthusiasm that it played its way from underdogs to world champions in 1995.

"There are a lot of cliches on leadership, but there is no real recipe. You have got to get into the team's psyche," he said. "We were lucky, we had Nelson Mandela. He came to our dressing room before the match. I felt so proud, I couldn't sing the anthem."

When faced with a difficult task, he argued, it was important to pay attention to details and to chop the goal into achievable chunks. "Many corporations just set one big goal: the budget. But a shorter period and clear goals give better focus. I measured peak performances of individual players, and they had to beat these week-in, week-out," said Pienaar.

Liesbeth Evers is senior reporter on Network News.