Interviews
- »One on One with Ed Hess
Grow or Die. It’s probably the most common business axiom, and the least accurate, according to the new book “Smart Growth: Building an Enduring Business by Managing the Risks of Growth” (Columbia Business School Publishing). To better understand the book’s implications for firms, Consulting’s One-on-One sat down with the book’s author, Ed Hess, a former Arthur Andersen strategy consultant and current professor at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business.
- »One on One with Summit's David Litherland
When prospective employees interview for a job, they obsess over making a good, lasting impression. Firms should do the same. To learn how firms can avoid typical pitfalls, Consulting’s One on One sat down with David Litherland, managing partner of Summit Search Group, an executive search firm specializing in placing professionals within professional service firms.
- »One on One with PwC's Tom Craren
Senior executives are becoming immune to traditional marketing. Marketing consultants tell us that to pierce through the white noise of corporate communication, firms should consider “content marketing”. Instead of more traditional marketing, providing valuable insight and perspective in a blog or electronic newsletter can serve as a more effective door opener. One of the best examples is PricewaterhouseCoopers’ “10-Minute” series. For almost three years, PwC has boiled down complex thought leadership into small electronic pieces an executive can read in about ten minutes. To learn more about PwC’s marketing efforts, Consulting’s One-on-One sat down with Tom Craren, the firm’s brand strategy and thought leadership leader. His team of 20 writers produces between two to three 10-minute pieces each month, along with more detailed white papers.
- »One on One with Stanford Hospital's Kate Surman
Transitioning healthcare companies from paper to electronic records presents huge consulting opportunities.
» View all
advertisement
|
Home
Service Line
Information Technology
6
1
2009
»Top 25 Consultants, 2009: Amy Shah
 Amy Shah
Senior Vice President
Sapient
Excellence in Client Services
It pays to be curious. Just ask Amy Shah, senior vice president, Sapient, whose leadership helped the firm’s Manhattan office’s staff grow 27 percent in an historic downturn. Actually, if you really did ask Shah, she would replay that curiosity pays for itself, and that valuable client relationships are more of a pleasant, ancillary benefit.
A few weeks ago, she reconnected with an old client in the financial services industry. He was working for a bank and mentioned a new product line. Shah realized a current client in a different industry, media, was working on a similar product, from different angles. Shah quickly introduced the two executives over dinner, so they could discuss her idea of how they might learn from each other.
Sapient may not do any work for either client, even if they do partner, and that’s perfectly fine with Shah. “Connecting the dots is not at all about, ‘Hey, am I going to get a project out of this?’ ” she asserts. “It’s about curiosity and passion for what your [current and former] clients are doing, and it’s about building a long-term relationship. But I think that the long-term relationship is the outcome of the curiosity and the passion—it’s not the reason for being curious and passionate.”
Successful client service is sometimes counterintuitive, notes Shah. She recently met with a New York University business school administrator to glean his latest thoughts on marketing. The session had nothing to do with current client work and it may or may not contribute to any upcoming business pitches.
And that doesn’t matter, says Shah.
“You have to take the initiative to go outside of your client companies and your own organization even though you don’t have a
lot of time in your day,” she notes. “You have to go out of your way to stay relevant so you can share leading-edge ideas with companies. I don’t see enough people doing that in consulting, frankly. … There is a tendency in the profession to get focused on one client and then forget about what else is out there. Eventually, that can become a disservice to your client.”
—Eric Krell
>> Full list of Top 25 Consultants 2009
|
|
