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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.
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2009
»Top 25 Consultants, 2009: Tim Wiest

Tim Wiest Principal Deloitte Consulting Excellence in Public Sector
At 5 a.m. on almost any Saturday morning in the fall, you’ll probably find Tim Wiest up a tree, literally. He’ll be holding a bow and arrow and hunting white-tailed deer before the sun’s even up near his home in Harrisburg, Pa.
It turns out, the middle of Pennsylvania is an ideal place to be a hunter. It’s also, Deloitte Consulting found out, the best place to serve the Commonwealth. Wiest, a principal and 23-year veteran of Deloitte, once tried to serve his government clients from Pittsburgh, but that was before the firm embarked on its Capital City Initiative in the mid 1990s. “We were trying to serve the state capital from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and we decided we needed to be in the city where government was being operated,” Wiest says. “So, Deloitte stepped up and put an office in Harrisburg in 1995.”
At that time, it was Wiest and two others in the new Deloitte office. Today, under Wiest’s leadership, that same office has grown to some 300 professionals serving the Commonwealth every day. “We put Harrisburg on the map,” he says. “The Capital City Initiative set out to target a geography, put feet on the street, and sell across our public services offerings, solutions and service areas. It was a real transformation in our firm to more of a relationship-based selling approach.” It’s working.
Wiest has completed some of the largest IT transformation projects in Pennsylvania, including operations in Health & Human Services and Law & Justice. As a result, the state committed more than $56 million to the Commonwealth’s minority- and woman-owned businesses and received more than $25 million annually in federal child support performance bonuses—the most in the U.S.
“We’re putting tools in the hands of the people that need them most,” Wiest says. “If you think about it, we’re impacting the state’s most vulnerable citizens. It’s very rewarding work.”
And just as rewording, he says, is the confidence Pennsylvania has in the firm. “We’re viewed as the firm that can solve their most complex and most difficult problems,” he says. “They view us as a business partner when it comes to the state’s large transformation projects, and they trust our brand of delivery.”
—Joseph Kornik
>> Full list of Top 25 Consultants 2009
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