Marketing

By Jodi Davies

“It’s very hard for firms to differentiate themselves from each other – they all become the same.  It’s often only the accent of the person I’m speaking to or the logo at the bottom of their presentation that’s different.”

Every consulting firm likes to think it’s special; many believe they’ve got a distinctive position in the market, but this comment, from a senior Saudi client, says it all.  Even hardened clients find it difficult to tell firms apart.

By Edward Haigh

Most consulting firms give fairly short shift to marketing at the best of times. Seen by many as a function whose remit extends as far as producing shiny brochures and organising events, the average marketing department is under-funded, under-staffed and - by my reckoning - misunderstood.

In September we were joined for a week by Alice Moore, who was about to head off to Oxford University to read English. Her main task involved assessing the relative strengths and weaknesses of consulting firms' websites, making her now (among other things) the world expert on how German consulting firms present themselves online (seriously, who else has ever spent an entire week looking at nothing else?).  Coming to this as a non-consultant, we suspect her views reflect those of clients.  Here's what she had to say...