Status of the Three Kingdoms troops in the Information Management and Consulting Industry

Foreign corps-soil and water are not served

It threw an embroidery ball to the management consulting company, and the earliest response was the traditional management consulting company. Once the international "five" consulting companies: PWC, andaxin, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, and KPMG. Relying on their keen awareness of information technology, they were growing rapidly by implementing ERP in 1990s, it is even more famous than McKinsey and Boston, a traditional well-known management consulting company.

In the field of information management, foreign corps has mature methods and rich cases. Mr. Gu Xiangsheng (Peter Koo), Deloitte's partner in the risk management service field, believes that, the role of the consulting consultant in information management is mainly the requirement analysis and strategy planning in the early stage of project implementation, the supervision in the middle stage of the project, and the testing in the later stage.

How are these international institutions doing in China? The answer we heard is "very general" and "not very good ". Users' dissatisfaction with the "Overseas Corps": first, the charges are too high, and most enterprises in China have not yet recognized the value of management consulting; second, the consultant is not familiar with the business of the enterprise and spends too much time asking silly questions from the experts.

A typical comment of a user is that the consultant is here. We have to spend a lot of time training him first, and we have to pay a high hourly fee for this. Isn't that right?

A well-known company in China started ERP and invited a famous consulting company. After a period of cooperation, it was found that although the "Sutra" of "external Monk" was nice, it could not really solve the problem. Later, Enterprise Informatization was simply "self-help" in management. Some companies in the securities industry have consulted consultants, and the effect after cooperation seems unsatisfactory. China's business environment is complex, and the management of domestic enterprises hides "personality". International consulting companies still need to experience hardships in the "localization" strategy.

Domestic troops-"accomplices" with manufacturers"

According to relevant sources, there are no more than a thousand enterprises engaged in IT management consulting in China, but most of them are relatively small. Some of them only hold the informatization of one or two customers, so they will not have to eat or drink for a year or two. One of the most distinctive features of this type of consulting company is that these vendors are not dedicated to management consulting, but at the same time acting on products of major international companies such as Oracle and sap, manages Consulting, implementation, maintenance, training, and other package services. In addition, a consulting company generally acts as an agent for only one product. It is called the "construction team" of the manufacturer ".

People who sell medicines prescribe a prescription and say no to anyone, but this is the truth about IT management consulting. Li Jun, Zhi Jie's Management Consulting consultant, said that IT management consulting companies in China are basically like this, which is the way to survive. If it is a pure, non-product-linked management consulting company, it cannot survive in China. In the IT field, what makes money is implementation, and product selection belongs to the combination service. users will not pay a very high price for this. As a single management consultant, Chinese companies do not have any brands and are not like the "four major" Companies (andat was impacted by the Anron incident and has now been split into other "four major" Companies). How can they survive? For example, there are two independent groups in the organizational structure: consulting and implementation, which are not sap or Oracle.

Vendors are bound with the consulting service because they share the same interests. But the strange thing is that users also accept this mode. Users' Opinions are: ERP and CRM are so complicated that there are just a few high-end products. It is not bad to select "medicine" and find a "langzhong" who is familiar with this "medicinal property.

Prior to implementation of ERP in pangang, he had technical exchanges and research with several major domestic manufacturers. He felt the necessity of management change and asked the manufacturers to find a consulting company and then bid together. Management consulting should have been expected to be a fair and even more on its own side. Instead, it acquiesce in consulting and manufacturers' "collusion", which is also the characteristic of IT management consulting.

Auto scaling-non-commercial model

In addition to the consulting entities that exist in the form of companies, what cannot be ignored is another force that is not formal but cannot be underestimated-research groups and scholars of institutions and research institutions.

Li Jun believes that these scholars and researchers are more of an academic background, have no knowledge of products and technologies, and are meaningless to participate in the selection of information products. However, he also admitted that the power of this "Free State" has contributed to the development of China's information management. They pushed up information management in cooperation with enterprises and in the media writing.

Guoxin Fangzhou, Executive Deputy General Manager, once served in a well-known ERP manufacturer in the south. He pointed out that about 1/3 of the projects in the original company involved consulting consultants at the user's requirements, and basically had a college background.

The existence of this force naturally makes sense. Not to mention the trust established by consultants and users in the past, the background of scholars in their professional knowledge and the ability to discriminate, is a backing for users who are afraid of being "cheated" by manufacturers. However, this kind of management consultation is more often used as a coordinated and fair third-party role. When only two people have problems with sales, I would like to say something that is "fair" and can be better accepted by both parties in my own respected identity.

Speaking of the role of these consultants, the vendor representatives also pointed out that when the process transformation encounters a conflict between enterprises, it may be more skeptical to reflect the problem in their own identities, if the consultant can see this, he can directly communicate with the user's senior management, and the problem can often be solved in a peaceful way.

Dr. Pan Xinping from the Institute of automation of the Chinese Emy of Sciences has been engaged in cross-research in the fields of policy, information technology and industry for many years ~ The long-term consultants of the five securities companies can be said to be prominent representatives of the "Lone Ranger. He believes that the current management consulting consultant is not in a very good state of survival, otherwise, he has started his own company with his qualifications.

It is undeniable that the consultants with the research background have played a key role in information management, especially before the project was launched, and there are also people like Dr. pan. However, as far as the role of management consulting is concerned, it is naturally impossible to develop through such channels. After all, such non-commercial consulting cannot assume more responsibilities, it can only be said that it is more of a "lubricant" function.

Source: branch network