In the field of management, strategic management involves the formulation and implementation of the major goals and initiatives taken by an organization's managers on behalf of stakeholders, based on consideration of resources and an assessment of the internal and external environments in which the organization operates. Strategic management provides overall direction to an enterprise and involves specifying the organization's objectives, developing policies and plans to achieve those objectives, and then allocating resources to implement the plans. Academics and practicing managers have developed numerous models and frameworks to assist in strategic decision-making in the context of complex environments and competitive dynamics. Strategic management is not static in nature; the models can include a feedback loop to monitor execution and to inform the next round of planning.
Porter's Five Forces Framework is a method of analysing the operating environment of a competition of a business. It draws from industrial organization (IO) economics to derive five forces that determine the competitive intensity and, therefore, the attractiveness of an industry in terms of its profitability. An "unattractive" industry is one in which the effect of these five forces reduces overall profitability. The most unattractive industry would be one approaching "pure competition", in which available profits for all firms are driven to normal profit levels. The five-forces perspective is associated with its originator, Michael E. Porter of Harvard University. This framework was first published in Harvard Business Review in 1979.
Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants for a number of reasons, including gaining external advice and accessing consultants' specialized expertise regarding concerns that call for additional oversight.
A value chain is a progression of activities that a firm operating in a specific industry performs in order to deliver a valuable product to the end customer. The concept comes through business management and was first described by Michael Porter in his 1985 best-seller, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance.
The idea of the value chain is based on the process view of organizations, the idea of seeing a manufacturing organization as a system, made up of subsystems each with inputs, transformation processes and outputs. Inputs, transformation processes, and outputs involve the acquisition and consumption of resources – money, labour, materials, equipment, buildings, land, administration and management. How value chain activities are carried out determines costs and affects profits.
Publicis Sapient is a global digital transformation consulting company and the digital business transformation hub of Publicis Groupe with 20,000 people and over 50 offices worldwide. It was originally established as Sapient in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1990. In 2015, Sapient became an Independent subsidiary of French multinational advertising firm Publicis, following a deal worth 3.7 billion dollars. It continues to remain headquartered in Boston Massachusetts and the leadership is retained.
A consultant is a professional who provides advice or services in an area of specialization. Consulting services generally fall under the domain of professional services, as contingent work.
Engineering management is the application of the practice of management to the practice of engineering. Engineering management is a career that brings together the technological problem-solving ability of engineering and the organizational, administrative, legal and planning abilities of management in order to oversee the operational performance of complex engineering-driven enterprises. A Master of Engineering Management (MEM) is sometimes compared to a Master of Business Administration (MBA) for professionals seeking a graduate degree as a qualifying credential for a career in engineering management.
Michael Eugene Porter is an American academic known for his theories on economics, business strategy, and social causes. He is the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School, and was one of the founders of the consulting firm The Monitor Group and FSG, a social impact consultancy. He is credited for creating Porter's five forces analysis, which is instrumental in business strategy development at present. He is generally regarded as the father of the modern strategy field. He is also regarded as one of the world's most influential thinkers on management and competitiveness as well as one of the most influential business strategists. His work has been recognized by governments, non governmental organizations and universities.
McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm founded in 1926 by University of Chicago professor James O. McKinsey, that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. Headquartered in New York City, McKinsey is the oldest and largest of the "Big Three" management consultancies (MBB), the world's most prestigious strategy consulting firms. The firm mainly focuses on the finances and operations of their clients.
Razorfish, a part of Publicis Groupe, is an interactive agency. Razorfish provides services including web development, media planning and buying, technology and innovation, emerging media, analytics, mobile, advertising, creative, social influence marketing and search.
A consulting firm or simply consultancy is a professional service firm that provides expertise and specialised labour for a fee, through the use of consultants. Consulting firms may have one employee or thousands; they may consult in a broad range of domains, for example, management, engineering, and so on.
Scient was a San Francisco-based Internet consulting company, founded in 1997, that was one of the large American consulting firms during the dot-com bubble. The company was founded by Eric Greenberg, who had previously founded its competitor, Viant. Its CEO was Robert Howe, the former head of IBM global consulting. At its height in the fall of 2000, it had quarterly revenues of US$100 million, 1,180 employees and a stock price of US$133. In August 2001, it bought rival company iXL; by then its quarterly revenues were down to US$11 million.
Viant Inc. was a multi-national Internet consulting firm, founded in San Francisco in April 1996, that was one of the first web consulting firms during the early stages of the Internet era.
Proxicom, Inc. was an interactive agency that developed custom-tailored interactive and web-enabled solutions for Global 1000 organizations. Founded in 1991 by American entrepreneur and philanthropist Raul Fernandez (entrepreneur), Proxicom was one of the original interactive professional services organizations from the dot com era. Proxicom provided services for a number of industries including: Automotive, Financial Services, Retail & Consumer Goods (CPG), Healthcare, Technology & Media, Government, Energy & Utilities, and Industrial Materials & Goods.
Mercer is an American consulting firm founded in 1945. It is one of the four operating subsidiaries of global professional services firm Marsh McLennan. Mercer is headquartered in New York City with offices in 43 countries and operations in 130 countries. The company primarily provides human resources and financial services consulting services to its clients.
Change management is a collective term for all approaches to prepare, support, and help individuals, teams, and organizations in making organizational change. It includes methods that redirect or redefine the use of resources, business process, budget allocations, or other modes of operation that significantly change a company or organization.
iXL Enterprises was an international interactive agency that operated from 1996 until 2002. The company was founded by Atlanta entrepreneur Bert Ellis, who also served as the company's chairman and CEO. At the company's height in 1999, which coincided with the height of the dot-com boom, iXL had around 1500 employees, a quarterly revenue of $33 million, and was publicly traded on the Nasdaq exchange, with ticker symbol "IIXL". After a series of acquisitions, it is now part of the Razorfish agency, owned by Publicis Groupe.
BTS Group AB (BTS) is a global strategy implementation consulting firm founded in 1986. The company provides strategy alignment and execution consulting services and designs customized business simulations, digital technology, and assessments to develop business acumen, leadership, and sales capabilities.
The history of business architecture has its origins in the 1980s. In the next decades business architecture has developed into a discipline of "cross-organizational design of the business as a whole" closely related to enterprise architecture. The concept of business architecture has been proposed as a blueprint of the enterprise, as a business strategy, and also as the representation of a business design.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to consulting:
