News Briefs
Parry out as CEO of MCG
Kevin Parry has resigned as CEO of the London-based Management Consulting Group. His resignation is effective immediately. As of press time, a new CEO had not been appointed to lead MCG. MCG, which rose out of Proudfoot
Consulting in 2001, currently owns seven consulting firms:
CBH Consulting, Ineum Consulting, Kurt Salmon Associates, Parson Consulting, Proudfoot Consulting, Salzer Consulting and Viaduct Consulting.
Booz Allen Names New Global Commercial Head
Shumeet Banerji was appointed president of Booz Allen
Hamilton’s newly created Global/Commercial Business.
In his new role, Banerji will lead the firm’s consulting business globally and its public sector business outside the
U.S. With separate presidents now heading up the firm’s
commercial and U.S. government operations, the move
lends credence to the talk that Booz Allen is on the verge
of splitting up the two businesses. Last month, The Washington Post reported the firm is in talks with the Carlyle
Group, a Washington D. C.-based private equity firm, about
selling off its government business. A Booz Allen
spokesperson had no comment.
Huron tops $500 million for 2007
Huron Consulting Group, the Chicago-based provider of financial and operational consulting services, repor ted 2007
revenues of $504.3 million—a 75 percent increase from
the $288.6 million it earned in 2006. The average number
of billable consultants at year’s end was 1,199, up from 777
at the end of 2006. For the fourth quarter, Huron reported
revenue of $136 million, up 63 percent from fourth quarter 2006. “We are pleased by Huron's strong growth in
2007 and we continued to see increased demand across
our service offerings,” says Gary E. Holdren, chairman and
chief executive officer of Huron.
TCS signs multi-year deal with Chrysler
Tata Consultancy Services, a global IT services and business solutions firm, signed a multi-year contract with
Chrysler to provide a comprehensive portfolio of IT services. Leveraging TCS’ Global Network Delivery Model,
The firm will deliver application maintenance and support
services to Chrysler. The IT services initiative will encompass a portion of the functional areas within Chrysler,
such as sales and marketing and shared services, according to N. Chandrasekaran, executive director and
chief operating officer of TCS. The automotive industry
is one of the focus markets for the TCS manufacturing
vertical, which accounted for 15. 1 percent of TCS’ 2007
$4.3 billion global revenues.
TCS: One-third of IT Projects Fail
Study finds projects not completed on time or on budget
Are information technology projects
doomed to failure? According to
research by Tata Consultancy Services
(TCS), the perception is yes. The firm,
after finding no industry standards for
the success rate of IT services, gathered its own data, and learned that IT
projects in one out of three companies
do not meet expectations.
“We have been tracking our projects for our customers in a variety of
parameters for the past 20 years or
so,” says Mike McCabe, director of
communications for North America
for TCS, who added that the firm
wanted benchmarks to measure its
own numbers, but came up lacking for
a reliable set of standards. “So we
decided, ‘Well, since there’s nothing
out there, let’s at least do some kind
of primary research, contacting people in the IT industry… and find out
what are their perceptions, and maybe
that will at least start the discussion
in the industry.’”
McCabe quickly learned the bleak
outlook most IT managers at IT orga-
nizations have on project management. “They’re the ones who are in the
best positions to know how projects
are going,” he says. TCS’ research
revealed that projects were not completed on time (62 percent) and within
budget ( 49 percent), according to the
800 middle and senior IT managers
Tata surveyed. McCabe is quick to
point out, though, that the numbers his
“Raising awareness is
what we wanted to do. It
behooves all of us to be
focused on providing the
best for customers. Mike McCabe, TCS North Amer”ica
firm is seeing internally do not match
what appears to be happening in the
industry. “Our experience with our
customers is much better,” he says.
Of course, IT research conducted
by a firm that does a lot of IT work
could raise a few eyebrows. But even
CASE STUDY
Robbins-Gioia: Morale Impacts Bottom Line
The Challenge: When GTSI, an IT products and services provider that works
exclusively with the government, was declaring its own fiscal crisis (a net loss of
$16 million in 2005), the company sought the counsel of program management
consultancy Robbins-Gioia. Revenue losses at GTSI were a symptom, not the
disease. The company had a turnover rate of 55 percent, and employee morale and
performance were suffering as well. Communication breakdowns were common.
The Strategy: According to Robbins-Gioia, the GTSI executive team wanted an
aggressive plan to return to profitability and re-establish itself in the market.
Robbins-Gioia saw the problem as a human capital management (HCM) issue,
and as such, the firm determined a baseline the for GTSI’s HCM capabilities.
