The information systems consulting industry has fallen on hard times. People inside of this industry say that it is because of the economy and the meltdown of the dot-com companies. The reality is that these same people brought much of this problem on themselves through their own self-defeating behavior, and refusal to practice some business basics.
Instead of simply building web-sites and solving the immediate problems identified by their clients, they instead built ôend-to-end solutionsö that were intended to save the client from getting crushed in the new global economy (King, 2001, p. 64). They created an atmosphere of fear and in many cases oversold their capabilities. When it came time to deliver, their output very often fell short of client expectations.
The over-promising that has in the past, run fairly rampant in the industry has infuriated many clients and hurt the reputation of consultants in the marketplace. Consequently, the problem facing companies today, within this space, is how to do business properly, regain client trust, and in short, deliver on the goods that were sold. The following paper describes a getting back to basics approach to redesigning the way services companies such as these sell and manage an engagement.
The Big Five consulting firms, despite their strength and capability, were caught seemingly flat-footed by the explosion associated with the spread of Web technology and did not have anywhere near the level of staff necessary to meet the demand. As a result, a number of ôconsultingö firms sprang up and a lot of the ôservicesö that were sold in the information technology arena in the last twenty-four (24) months, especially those having specific focus on the Internet and ôWeb-enablement,ö were strictly ôsnake oilö and the sad thing was that clients did not know it (King, 2001, p. 64).
The technology, especially that as it relates to the Web, is not easy. It takes a lot of...