Billable consultants: 70
Offices: 3
In an advertisement broadcast during the most recent Super Bowl, a pint-size Shaquille O'Neal steps out of a cell phone to mark a giant step forward in telecommunications: wireless television via cell phone.
The breakthrough also crystallizes what Adventis president and CEO Raul Katz means when he describes the "information industry collision chamber."
The two key players behind the new streaming video service, Verizon and Microsoft, are clients of Adventis, a strategy and management consultancy that specializes in telecommunications. The firm also specializes in related — "intertwined" or "colliding" are probably more accurate adjectives — sectors, such as high-tech and media & entertainment.
Katz, a former director of Booz Allen Hamilton's U.S. and Latin American telecommunications practices, took over the top post from Adventis founder Andy Belt in November. The firm also added four new vice presidents two months before Katz's hiring, a clear signal that Adventis is gearing up to extend its international reach.
The scramble for larger shares of consumer and enterprise spending among cable companies, entertainment companies, and telecommunications providers has caused significant disruption, Katz notes, "and general management consultants thrive in situations of disruption."
Specializing in telecommunications serves as a beneficial differentiator, Katz believes, when prospective clients evaluate Adventis alongside his former employer and other strategy firms. "As large consulting firms move more and more in the direction of functional service offerings, at a certain point they lose the ability to add value through a solid, in-depth understanding of the industry that you're consulting within," he notes. "Telecommunications carriers, for example, are very idiosyncratic in nature — they're not the same as banks."
Katz views Adventis's industry-specific approach as similar to that of consulting firms in other sectors, such as First Manhattan Consulting Group or Mercer Oliver Wyman in the financial services space. "Both of those firms bring a similar kind of value proposition to their verticals," he points out.
Adventis's service offerings range from pure strategy to organizational and process work, all of which is conducted by consultants with telecommunications-specific areas of expertise. That industry knowledge, Katz believes, translates to a shorter learning curve on engagement and a better value proposition for clients.
"Since we know what other companies in the industry are doing, we can act as a very good knowledge-transfer mechanism," says Katz, emphasizing that the firm executes its conduit role well within conflict-of-interest and competitive guidelines. "We can also interact with executives in the industry in a common set of languages, codes, and cultural patterns. Many of our consultants were professionals within the industry as well."
That level of familiarity helped attract Katz to the firm last year. In the due diligence he conducted during the courtship, Katz found a "widespread perception among clients that the Adventis consultants understood their problems." Adventis grew 20 percent last year, and Katz expects the growth to accelerate as the firm makes new connections in the telecommunications collision chambers globally, and in Europe in particular.
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