Ray Hill isn't shy about taking on the big boys. As general manger for IMS Health, Ray Hill oversees the global management consulting business at IMS Health, a publicly traded $2 billion company. Its advisory arm, IMS Health Consulting, is a relatively new player in the pharmaceutical consulting space, but Hill has some pretty lofty ambitions about the firm. "Our goal is to be the number one firm in terms of revenue in the pharmaceutical space by 2008," Hill says. "We've experienced organic growth about two to three times the industry average, and we've also grown quite a bit through acquisitions."
When you look at the numbers, it certainly seems possible. In 2003, IMS Health Consulting reported revenue of $120.7 million. In 2006, that number tripled to $359.5 million. Last year, IMS Health Consulting moved from No. 6 in the pharmaceutical space all the way up to No. 2. "McKinsey has been number one the past five years," Hill says. "But we expect to be number one by 2008."
Another goal, Hill says, is to build the infrastructure needed to support a world-class consulting business. "We're neophytes; we just started this in 2003," he says. "A lot of the things you'd find at an Accenture or McKinsey aren't here. Our goal over the next five years is to continue to build the foundation, and then to become the recognized thought leaders in the areas we play."
Hill credits much of the firm's success to IMS' unique business model called "evidence-based consulting," a practice that relies on a narrow focus and plenty of proprietary data.
"Our advantage is that IMS has a tremendous amount of data that we can tap for our clients," Hill says. "We can use all of our data about market size, forecasted growth, competitive dynamics and other factors to help clients make much tighter decisions."
Before joining IMS, Hill worked for A.T. Kearney and Booz Allen Hamilton. "I had worked for some great firms, but then I started to think, 'Do I really want to join another case-based consulting business?'" Hill says. "How often in your career do you get the chance to build something new?
"No one has built a successful high-end advisory business in the context of a product company," he says. I was at A.T. Kearney and saw an abysmal failure with EDS. If we do crack this, we'll be the first to make it happen."
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