If You're Like Most Companies You're Messed Up

"If your company is like most North American technology businesses, you are not conducting formal companywide assessments of your competitiveness …"

--A.T. Kearney

How do you like white papers that start out by saying that you are probably messing things up? Not only that, but the reason you are messing things up is because you don't buy enough of the types of services the author sells. This opening certainly gets your attention. Of course, it could also turn you off.

Judge for yourself by reading this A.T. Kearney article by Philipp Jung and Eric Cherng. The article discusses the results of a survey of 300 high-tech executives on the key competitive actions these executives think they should take and what actions they actually do take.





I think consultants write like this when they get frustrated with their clients. On the one hand clients say they want to be one thing (more strategic, more innovative, more risk taking, etc.) but in practice clients are just the opposite. It's another example of people doing the opposite of what they think they should do. I have discussed this before.

In the survey, the actions most executives cite as ways they are increasing innovation is by extending current products and creating new bundled offerings. Other competitive actions cited by these executives are even less exciting.

That said, however, I don't think beating people up first is how you get them to open their minds or their wallets (legally, anyway).

Effective marketers realize that they have to deal with the customers that actually exist, not the ideal customers they would prefer. And shaming customers into correct behavior is not going to whip them into shape -- even if whipping is deserved.

NOTE: Previous posts referencing A.T. Kearney are listed below. To see posts referencing other consulting firms (e.g., Bain, Boston Consulting Group, Booz Allen Hamilton, Mercer, DiamondCluster, InfoSys) type the name of the firm in the search box at the right.

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