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| Business & Decision: Global Progress |
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| Written by Jill Rose | ||
| Friday, 01 January 2010 00:00 | ||
“If your business has operations in the US, France, Switzerland, and the UK, for example, there are only a handful of companies that can help you across those multiple geographies,” said Robin Kearon, CEO of Business & Decision North America, based in Wayne, Pa.  “There’s Accenture and IBM, but they are saddled with the costs and inefficiencies inherent in large organizations. We are much more nimble, able to leverage our global expertise and very quickly address a market need.”Part of the company’s agility comes from the way it’s organized, Kearon said. Executives in the various divisions are encouraged to get to know one another and work collaboratively. “We’re not a big partnership organization that can take days or weeks to communicate across boundaries,” he said. “If a customer that has an issue in the US that needs similar guidance in Switzerland, it’s very easy—with one phone call, we can leverage those skills.” Globally, Business & Decision employs about 3,000 and has a presence in 19 countries. The North American division includes about 300 but represents more than 15% of the overall company’s revenue. Each division has access to software developers in India, Tunisia, and Mauritius for business intelligence, CRM, enterprise information management, and e-business projects. At the intersection Although every project Business & Decision consultants work on includes technology in some form, Kearon said the intersection of industry expertise and technology is where value is generated for customers. Specifically, Kearon’s group has many clients in the financial services and life sciences industries, both of which are heavily regulated. “The companies we work with are mainly in industries that are changing and evolving, and they all tend to have complex requirements on the technology for the rules that govern the business,” he said. “Our investment in qualifying our data center under FDA guidelines is an example of our commitment.” For example, regardless of whether a company is in the US, the UK, or Europe, stringent rules apply to manufacturing activities that impact public safety. “If you take an aspirin for a headache, you want to know that it’s aspirin, that the headache will go away, and that you’re not going to break out in a rash because someone didn’t quite follow the instructions for making aspirin,” said Kearon. By understanding the complexities of these industries, Kearon and his team can help companies take a step back and see if there’s a way to use technology to improve their processes, improve quality, comply with regulations, and deliver solid intelligence about their business. So as not to reinvent the wheel each time when it comes to implementing a solution, the company employs multiple knowledge-sharing platforms, including a company-wide wiki (think Wikipedia but specific to a company.) “The wiki has information on every customer we’ve delivered services to: what we delivered, why, and the benchmarks we measured their processes against,” said Kearon. “Anyone with qualified access can see it from anywhere in the world and leverage it to guide other customers.” Making a commitment Kearon pointed to three vendor relationships as another key to his division’s success. For business intelligence applications, the company works closely with SAP. “Several of our employees are former SAP employees. That allows us to offer guidance on the BI roadmap and our interpretation of that roadmap to our customers. More and more, it seems our customers are engaging us because of that insight,” Kearon said. For cloud computing, the company partners with Salesforce.com. Recently, that relationship has developed beyond sales force automation applications to include a new platform called Force that allows customers to easily and inexpensively replace older applications. “They can now take a look at applications that have been sitting around for years because there wasn’t a strong enough cost benefit to replace them with something better,” said Kearon. “Force gives companies a very strong return on their investment.” Business & Decision North America’s longest vendor partnership is with Oracle, and it holds the distinction of being one of only a handful of companies that hold Certified Advantage Partner status in the US, the UK, and France. “It’s a differentiator for our company and a sign of our commitment to Oracle as a partner,” explained Kearon. “We believe in Oracle’s technology. The company has made tremendous strides in the past five years or so on the applications side, which is where we focus most.” The company’s close relationships with its partners are essential to providing the best possible service to its customers, Kearon continued. “For example, we have a relationship with the person responsible for the strategy for Fusion Application, Oracle’s next-generation product,” he said. “In a similar vein, we make sure our team knows what the future will likely look like for technology to address new business rules such as the European Commission’s standards on serialization or the impact of IFRS.” Although Kearon’s group took a hit during the recession along with just about every other consulting company, he said he is starting to see signs of life. “There is clearly more interest in moving ahead with projects, and some contracts that had been on hold for several months were signed in October,” he said. “It’s a good foreteller of an uptick because the projects they’re beginning will help our customers drive efficiency, which will allow them to put more money into R&D.” |