Consulting Network » Bain & Company http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in Fri, 13 Jan 2012 04:39:53 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Strategy Consulting Landscape http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/strategy-consulting-landscape/2289/?utm_source=subscriber&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/strategy-consulting-landscape/2289/#comments Thu, 25 Nov 2010 18:45:43 +0000 Anand Rao http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/?p=2289 The strategy consulting landscape has evolved significantly over the past few months. Today, consulting firms are experimenting with different delivery models to supply their skills and resources – forging alliances new markets, joint ventures for market leadership etc.

Earlier in 2010, AON went about acquiring Hewitt Associates for about $4.9 billion to strengthen its human resource base. Consultancy firms – Booz & Co. and AT Kearney were involved in merger talks, which eventually didn’t take place. Going by the annual revenues of these two firms the merger would have placed them third in strategy consulting – behind McKinsey & Co. and BCG. After a successful deal structure with Bearing Point’s North American arm, Deloitte was most recently involved in advanced merger talks with Germany’s Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. This deal fell apart on Wednesday 23rd Nov, sighting Roland Berger’s plan to remain independent – gaining a close to 100% majority voting from its partners, as reported by Financial Times. A successful deal between these two firms would have challenged some of the big names in the strategy consulting landscape, clearly creating a global strategy leadership with annual revenues close to $3 billion.

A traditional forecast model cannot predict the future M&A’s as consulting firms are slowly, but steadily coming out of recession. It would however be interesting to see how firms will be looking to adapt from focusing on deals to enjoying a more transformational relationship. For some consulting firms, this means to return to their traditional consulting roots; while for others, the challenge would be to focus on diversification without compromising their reputation and cost base. Success for consulting firms lies in understanding their position within the strategy consulting landscape, and the specific threats and opportunities this brings.

You may also follow this article on author’s blog: http://experiencesspeak.blogspot.com/2010/11/overview-of-current-strategy-consulting.html


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]]> http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/strategy-consulting-landscape/2289/feed/ 0 Indian Consulting Market: An Insight into the Factors Restricting Growth http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/indian-consulting-market-an-insight-into-the-factors-restricting-growth/857/?utm_source=subscriber&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/indian-consulting-market-an-insight-into-the-factors-restricting-growth/857/#comments Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:13:51 +0000 Ashwin T Ananthakrishnan http://consultingnetwork.co.in/?p=857 The Indian Consulting Industry has been experiencing a resurgence in the last few years. This industry has been making rapid strides in the Indian market over the last decade and has witnessed a significant increase in the number of new entrants in this field. The solitary objective of the participants in this market has been to gain maximum market share in this highly consolidated and  competitive environment, primarily by capitalizing on the apposite factors driving it.

The Asia-Pacific (APAC) consulting industry generated revenues worth $33.5 billion approximately in the year 2008 and registered a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 4.1 percent from 2007. The market is further expected to experience steady growth and is anticipated to generate revenues of approximately $39.2 billion by the end of 2012. Japan has dominated the APAC market by contributing the maximum revenues with a share of nearly 67.2 percent. Out of the APAC total market, India’s contribution stands at $1.81 billion approximately with a share of approximately 5.4 percent of the total APAC market size. Information Technology (IT) including e-commerce, telecommunications and so on followed by Corporate Strategy, Outsourcing Services, Human Resource Management, and Operations Management have been some of the prominent business divisions in the consulting market. The below graph (Figure 1) portrays the percentage split of the total APAC revenue across difference business units:


Why Consulting?

The necessity of moving ahead in the competitive structure or chain and gaining optimum market share in today’s highly competitive markets has made companies across verticals opt for third-party consulting and advisory services. This has made consulting an indispensable function for companies these days. The differentiating factor that each company puts forward in order to achieve competitive edge over their rivals has been one of the important factors of success for all the companies, specifically in the Indian market, and this is impossible with out the knowledge of market trends and behaviors. Moreover,  the fact that this success can be achieved only by implementing the right strategies from time to time and by taking pertinent decisions considering the market scenarios they cater to have prompted companies to subscribe for the products and services offered by consulting firms. The primary reason behind this urge is because consulting firms interact or are involved with the all the market participants or industries participants on a regular basis and are very well informed about the market happenings in each of the sectors. This continuous market tracking service coupled with technical industry know-how facilitates consulting firms to help clients take the right decision at the right time as well as relieve them from the pressures like ‘time-to-market’ a new product or production planning or in fact any challenges in any business divisions. In a nutshell, need for the appropriate market facts, the urge for companies to face the market trends by applying third party & unbiased thoughts, the call for a complete 360 degree view of the market that each company participate in, and the requirement to take apt decisions by companies to outpace competition are some of the factors that drive the growth of this industry.

Challenges Faced by Emerging & Boutique Consulting Firms

Acquiring the right set of talent challenges the firm in matching the client’s requirements:

Providing meaningful insights with optimum clarity and offering strategic advisory solutions on diverse subjects based on the analysis done are the two important aspects of consulting. These are also the two essential factors that each company looks out from the consulting firms. Even though, delivering all these factors together bind a consulting firm’s success, this can only be achieved by having the right set of manpower and appropriate pool of talent. Acquiring the right set of people to match every client’s broad range of requirements has been one of the challenges that smaller consulting firms in the Indian market face. This challenge has resulted in a change in the trend of hiring manpower in consulting organizations of late. Previously, consulting firms were primarily looking at hiring specific industry expert or any individual market expert. Even though some firms continue to sustain this model of hiring, most of the emerging firms in the country focus at hiring individuals who are flexible and those who can analyze any market or industry at a given period of time. This trend is expected to crystallize in a few years down the line. The reason for the same is two fold. One, the firms can leverage on their mixed pool of talent and assign any projects to any one individual or more and secondly, this facilitates the firm to considerably cut costs of engaging a single market expert.

This factor is even more risky for smaller and boutique consulting firms compared to the established ones, as they are much smaller in terms of their size, operations, and financial capabilities. Although, these firms offer only niche market services compared to other traditional firms, some of these boutique firms also face powerlessness to train their new employees due to the lack of proper resources, which restrains the firm’s growth further.

Increasing rate of attrition affects the organizational growth:

One other challenge that Indian consulting firms, both established as well as emerging ones face is the increasing rate of attrition. This can be associated with multiple reasons like the increasing growth opportunities in the market for consultants, attractive compensation packages, or correspondingly the cost cutting measures that companies adopt, and also on the cost- benefit ratio from the companies stand-point although the latter is applied only during acute market crisis. However, better remuneration packages on offer and better career prospects available are the two most common factors that consultants give importance to. Apart from these two factors, other common reasons range from dissatisfaction of their job role to the simple reason of lack of post-graduate sponsorships available with in the firms they work. All together, a suitable work-life balance, greater leadership roles in front, with better remuneration and benefits are some of the common factors which consultants expect in each company and with consulting becoming more mainstream today, the rate of attrition in this industry is expected to gradually slow down in a few years down the line. The impact of this factor is comparatively low on established firms because they have the best set of experienced consultants who can act as a back-up in case of an emergency situation. However, the impact is pretty severe on smaller firms as they are small in size and operations and also due the fact the time taken for smaller firms to replace a consultant with a new one is longer compared to the bigger firms. The below table shows the common reasons for attrition and what companies should do to retain talent:

Common reasons for attrition

What companies should do to retain talent?

Poor Pay

Better Organization Management

Poor Career Development

Career Development

Better Opportunities Else Where

Flexible Benefits

Poor Projects

Salary/Bonus/Incentives

Office Politics

Extended Ownership

Poor Management

Profit Sharing

Better Offers

Support Structure

Work/life Balance

Better Management Leadership

Source: Top-Consultant.com

Maintaining long-term relationships with clients affects the long-term existence of the firm:

Maintaining long-term relationships with existing clients is one other key challenge that the small and emerging consulting firms face. This is largely due to the fact that the Indian consulting market is more or less a buyers market. More than convincing the companies to sign-up proposals, factors such as cost-benefit ratios, value added services and so on play a pivotal role. Numerous market participants and increasing market entrants with a variety of project deliverables have leveraged organizations by giving them the option to choose the right consulting firm for the right price for a project. However, this factor should be perceived on a different notion when it comes to a proposal with bigger and established consulting firms who are the pioneers of this Industry and who have proven success record in delivering results.

Highly competitive market influence firms in gaining market share:

Smaller and emerging firms also face the challenge of gaining market share. Regional consulting firms have lesser market share compared to the bigger established firms who always top the competitive chain, even in the Indian market. Like wise, global players such as Bain & Co., McKinsey & Co., Boston Consulting Group and so on dominate the market for strategy consulting with nearly three-fourth of the market share in their hands, leaving the rest to the smaller and emerging firms. On a related note, most of the above mentioned business divisions are being monopolized by the big guns there by leaving very little scope for the smaller and emerging consulting firms. However, a noticeable trend in the recent years is that the smaller and niche firms are gradually taken seriously than the bigger ones. Of late, companies have started experimenting with niche firms by working with them on smaller regional projects but at the same time partner with the trusted bigger ones for the larger and other global projects. Nevertheless choosing the right consulting firm largely depends on the bids or request for proposals (RFP) that companies put forward and the proposals they receive from these consulting firms. While attracting new clients will always be an easy task for the established consulting firms due to their proven success and credibility, this factor acts as a major barrier on emerging firms as developing and converting a relationship into a business deal is comparatively tricky for these firms owing to their poor strategic alliances, lesser corporate experience and so on.

Off shoring/Outsourcing to India acts as a challenge as well as driver:

Off shoring back-end functions to India has obviously been a market driver, not only for the consulting industry but for the country as a whole. However, from a consulting firm’s perspective, though this factor helps expansion and globalization, some companies feel that it restrains the company development and growth in the outsourced regions primarily because of cultural differences and other barriers related to work. Professional dissimilarity, differences in attitude, adjusting to time zones, accent’s, and differences in a person’s commitment to work have been some of the factors that American & European counterparts consider as challenges, when it comes to off shoring work to India. And these are also some of the challenges that small and emerging consulting firms in India face, due to which the company brand name and public perception is most likely to be hampered. However, this can be overcome if the firm acquires the right set of people, train them on flexibility and motivate them to work better.

‘Market’ as a Challenge affects routine businesses:

One of the other challenging factors which impact consulting firms, smaller ones especially is the volatile market conditions they experience. Even though this factor affects both the established as well as smaller emerging firms, the former have the capability to sustain and overcome the market downfall in a better efficient way due to their long-term existence and familiarity of the market, than the latter. One such situation to be quoted is the recent sub-prime crisis which more or less created a win-win situation for both bigger and smaller firms with respect to acquiring new projects, i.e., it created a situation where in the boutique firms could possibly capitalize on the market conditions to win a project over the bigger ones, primarily because of their reduced pricing and other cost saving offerings. However, a fact is that, such situations are real good opportunities for the boutique firms to prove their capability and credibility but in general most of the companies, totter in such situations.

Threat of Substitutes impacts new business development:

‘Threat of substitutes’ is one other key challenge that smaller and boutique firms face. Although the penetration rate of new entrants entering the market has been moderate for now, companies still has a lot of options when it comes to the RFP process for projects. Apart from the presence of big four consulting firms, there are numerous smaller and emerging firms in India who are yet to prove their credibility and who offer services at a reduced price compared to the others. Coupled with the reduced pricing, every new entrant into this market is coming up with differentiated consulting models and methodologies for attracting new businesses, and this again acts as a threat to the other firms. Existence of numerous firms, differentiated offerings, reduced pricing and so on has impacted the smaller firms in India by hampering the customer loyalty and also by making this market, a highly price sensitive one.

Conclusion

Although, factors like globalization, off shoring and outsourcing have made India a suitable destination for various companies, creating vast employment opportunities for the increased pool of talent, the regional smaller and emerging firms still face a lot of challenges such as the ones highlighted above. The firms catering to the Indian market alone are on a rough terrain compared to the bigger established firms who have global roots. This is primarily because global firms who are eminent and well-known have a better probability of converting proposals into projects compared to the emerging firms with in India who are yet to prove their credibility and offerings. However, the growing level of uncertainty in today’s market, increasing competition, consolidation, the scope for various business’ in India and so on will drive the growth and is expected to make the Indian consulting industry’s future, a promising one.

Ashwin T Ananthakrishnan can be reached at ashwin.ananth@gmail.com


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]]> http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/indian-consulting-market-an-insight-into-the-factors-restricting-growth/857/feed/ 1 Beijing is well-positioned to weather global economic storm – Bain & Company http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/beijing-is-well-positioned-to-weather-global-economic-storm-bain-company/692/?utm_source=subscriber&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/beijing-is-well-positioned-to-weather-global-economic-storm-bain-company/692/#comments Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:47:26 +0000 Knowledge Seeker http://consultingnetwork.co.in/?p=692
Boston-based management consultants Bain & Company believes in gauging success in terms of their clients’ financial results. It can’t be otherwise as the company very often accepts rewards in the form of equity in the firms it advises. In an interview, Steve said anything the Indian government could do to drive liquidity into the market is very essential now.

What is your take on course of the global economy in the near to medium term? Have we begun seeing early signs of a turnaround?

Anyone venturing to make specific predictions on the global economy now would clearly be putting himself at great risk. The fact is, we’re witnessing absolutely unprecedented levels of turbulence and uncertainty. Latest estimates are that global GDP would contract by 0.5-1% in 2009.

The magnitude of the current downturn is far greater and it is also much more pervasive than other worldwide recessions in the past 30-40 years. The leading indicators are relatively useless at this juncture.

India, despite its exports-imports to GDP ratio being not very high, is seriously impacted by the crisis.

Obviously, India is not insulated from the global crisis. It can’t be. There is a serious slowdown in India’s exports and the FDI inflows are also adversely affected. Together, these account for a significant portion of the GDP. Frankly, relative to many other countries, the challenge to employment growth posed by the crisis is more serious for India because 15 million enter the country’s job market every year.

This is a unique challenge. So, anything the government can do to drive liquidity into the market is essential. In addition to coaxing banks to lend, the government also needs to take steps to boost the corporate bond market.

With the high fiscal deficit, there is little space left for providing fiscal boost to the economy but there is still room for monetary easing. Banks here are at best supporting working capital needs of companies, much akin to how their counterparts in Germany, UK, Brazil, Japan etc are behaving these days.

Because of herd behaviour among potential lenders, credit is simply not forthcoming for major capital investments, which is necessary for overcoming the crisis. There is a glaring absence of risk appetite among the lenders, despite plenty of money in the global system. The money is not finding its way from the lenders to the people who need capital. It is also the question of dearth of borrowers in markets affected by dampened demand.

How feasible is to enhance intra-Asia trade in an expedient manner to partly offset the impact of decline in demand in the west on the aggregate demand for Indian goods and services?

Intra-Asia Pacific trade should be a priority for policymakers here. But given the level of purchasing power of the consumers in the region where half of the world population live, any plausible increase in intra-Asia Pacific trade would not make up for the western slump. A retreat to regionalism is not the solution. What is required is more rapid acceleration of the world trade.

West’s protectionism could undermine the ability of countries to salvage economies.

Reneging on the promise of liberalising the world trade is good for none. There may be instances of some (protectionist) legislations in the US. But I hope this would not constitute a trend. Protectionism will doubtless impair the ability of economies to come out of the recession.

The current crisis has goaded the governments and regulators in the world to collaborate and coordinate. Much more synchronised banking regulation, which the crisis has enabled, will provide long-term benefit to the global economy in terms of an increased ability of financial sector regulators to take concerted, swift actions to defuse and pre-empt crises.

So, even though it might sound ironical, the improvement in the quality and effectiveness of regulatory interventions is a positive outcome of having a crisis of such magnitude and spread. The G20 meeting beginning in London from April 2, I hope, would be marked by a definite plan for reviving the world economy and prompt follow-up action.

How able is China to weather the storm?

I’m pretty bullish on China’s ability to withstand the crisis. The combination of political communism and economic capitalism that China has adopted as a strategy is working for that country. Export contribution to Chinese economy might be bigger than of many other countries, but with its huge reserves and rapidly growing middle class, Beijing is well-positioned to weather any storm without major dislocations.

Chinese authorities exercise much greater control than their counterparts in most other countries and are in a position to provide fiscal stimuli to the economy in ample measure. Frankly, China’s ability to provide centrally managed fiscal incentives to the economy and thereby prop up demand is enviable. Of course there is the question of finding employment for those migrating to the urban areas.

To get them employment, the country need to have at least 8-9% growth. During these turbulent times, one concern of Beijing could be about $1 trillion of its nest eggs invested in US treasury securities.

Source: Economic Times


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]]> http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/beijing-is-well-positioned-to-weather-global-economic-storm-bain-company/692/feed/ 0 Wipro sets up consulting R&D arm/Sizes up its Competition http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/wipro-sets-up-consulting-rd-armsizes-up-its-competition/578/?utm_source=subscriber&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/wipro-sets-up-consulting-rd-armsizes-up-its-competition/578/#comments Mon, 30 Mar 2009 04:24:55 +0000 Knowledge Seeker http://consultingnetwork.co.in/?p=578

Technology major Wipro is planning a deep plunge into the global consulting market with the idea of competing with true-blue global consulting brands and IT consulting firms.

In preparation for this move, the company has carried out an in-depth study on select consulting majors including Ernst & Young, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, McKinsey and Bain & Company to understand what made them stay different in the consulting world.

Anurag Srivastava, head of Wipro Consulting Services (WCS) said, “The objective of the study was to gather a holistic understanding of the consulting business. We want to create differentiation in the global markets through innovation-driven consulting. Consulting will be the front-end service for most of our large business deals.”

Wipro has also set up a dedicated research and development arm, Global Research Centre, to support its initiatives in the consulting space. The R&D facility will seek to enhance the business value to clients through innovation. The company believes that consulting will work as a powerful tool during times of recession to gain customer confidence.

Wipro employs over 1,200 consulting professionals and 7% of them will now be part of the R&D team. The team will track 12 industry verticals. The research activity starts with profiling the customer, moves on to analysing industrial trends, followed by providing a macro-economic snapshot and culminating in a viable business strategy.

The job of the R&D team is to lay seeds of innovation. It will play a key role in bridging the divide between ideators and front-end workers.

“The researchers will work in tandem with consulting professionals, so that customers are increasingly benefited,” Srivastava said. “Consulting will have a significant impact on our IT/BPO revenues. It will transform us from an outsourcing player to a transformational partner.”

Sourced from Indiatimes


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]]> http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/wipro-sets-up-consulting-rd-armsizes-up-its-competition/578/feed/ 0 Interview with Greg Brenneman, Chairman, CCMP Capital http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/can-you-pass-a-ceo-test/518/?utm_source=subscriber&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss http://www.consultingnetwork.co.in/can-you-pass-a-ceo-test/518/#comments Thu, 19 Mar 2009 06:17:58 +0000 Knowledge Seeker http://consultingnetwork.co.in/?p=518

Q. What do you consider the keys to effective leadership?

A. The most important thing is that you treat everybody incredibly well and lead with a bit of humility. I’ve found that when I go into a company to lead it’s important to have a plan and to make that plan a simple one that everybody can understand. So even before I go into a company, or even if we’re looking at a business here at CCMP, I’m constantly asking the question, “What are the two or three levers that, if done right, if pulled correctly, will really turn this business?” Then what I do is take that and put it into a one-page plan.

I learned back in the days when I was consulting at Bain & Company — and before that when I was at Harvard Business School doing case studies — that they give you more information than you could possibly read. So you needed to quickly step back and say, “What are the two or three things that really matter?” And I find in the world that people don’t really do that often. They just dive into all this detail and start using acronyms and buzzwords and they don’t step back.

For example, when Gordon (Bethune) and I took over Continental, the first thing we did was we sat down at his dining room table, and I just had out a notepad and we started drinking wine, and we switched to Scotch, and we just started to endeavor to write down everything that was brain-dead about the airline, everything that was wrong.

And that ultimately, very quickly, within a week or less, got put into a plan called the Go Forward Plan, which was a market plan called Fly to Win, a financial plan called Fund the Future, a product plan called Make Reliability a Reality, and a people plan called Working Together. And it all went on one page, and even underneath each of those items it was all just stuff that was very easy to understand, like: “The fastest way to make money is to stop doing things that lose it.” And so we stopped flying to places that lost money.

Q. Is there a magic number of points for a business plan?

A. I’m not sure there’s a magic number, per se. I’d divide the page in quadrants: Market, Financial, Product and People. And if I can’t simply put what needs to be done on one page, I probably haven’t thought through it very well.

There’s a great saying: “I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.” I find that in business a lot people take the time to write the really long letter, but they don’t take time to write the short one, and it even applies to doing investments.

When one of our guys is presenting an investment, you always kind of know they have it if they can explain it very quickly. And if it takes a really long time and you’re into the square root of the price of oil in Uzbekistan, you probably know that it’s gotten too complicated, and that’s when I start asking questions — when people start having trouble simply saying, “Here’s the idea.”

Q. On your first day at a new company, what is your goal, what do you want to communicate to the staff?

A. On the first day it would be more like, “I am proud to be here with you and appreciate what you have done; here are some observations about the business and some rules for how we’re going to treat each other.” Shortly thereafter we would roll out the one-page plan.

I tell everyone that my e-mail’s always accessible and I’ll always respond within 24 hours. You don’t need to feel like you’ve got to come up through the ranks; you can always e-mail me. Something that we’ve used ever since the Continental days when we started it there is to leave a voice mail for the troops every single Friday. Usually it revolves around the plan. Here’s what we told you we were going to do, here’s what we did, and here’s where we’re headed next week. So a lot of communication on that first day is just kind of breaking down communication barriers, firing people up and putting people at ease by letting them know what to expect.

Q. When you are hiring, or evaluating a management team, do you have one or two or three acid-test questions?

A. Yes, and I’ll phrase it in terms of what I look for and then maybe we can go to questions. Right now, CCMP has about 50 portfolio companies. Fifteen companies make up about 80 percent of our economics, and I’m actually mentoring C.E.O.’s of some of those companies.

My job now, which I love, is a little different than running a company because I interact with so many C.E.O.’s. And I really test for two things. One is, are they smart enough to do the job? Do they have enough capability to find those two or three levers that really make a difference in a business? And I call that the I.Q.-dipstick test; if you stick the I.Q. dipstick in and it comes out two quarts empty, there’s nothing else we can do. Thankfully, the vast majority of CCMP C.E.O.’s I have met pass the I.Q. test.

Q. And how do you …

A. I’ll start asking questions. What really drives this business? If I told you I’d love to see earnings up 20 percent, what would be the levers we could pull to do that? Right now, it’s actually a different question, which is, how is your revenue forecast coming out? And then you just listen.

Some C.E.O.’s will say, ‘I’m gonna do one, two, three, four, five.’ And you sit there and listen and you say, ‘Yeah, that makes sense. I got it.’ But then you have some that look at you like you came from Mars — and I worry about those guys. Or you have some that will just filibuster you for 30 minutes with stuff you just don’t understand — this buzzword, that buzzword. I worry about those guys even more than the guys that just give you a blank stare.

The second thing I look for is if I were to get on an airplane with this guy or gal, would I want to fly across the Atlantic with them? Are they nice people to be with? Do you want to be with them? Because I find that people that don’t relate well to anybody, from owners or board members to peers to direct reports to folks that actually work for a living in the trenches, they don’t succeed very well. You can usually tell that by asking, “What do you enjoy doing? What do you do as a hobby?” And ask a few questions to the people that work around them, and you get a pretty good sense pretty quickly.

Q. How do you run meetings?

A. We tend to run meetings a bit like a food fight here at CCMP. Anybody can have an idea or a thought, and the best idea wins. And so there’s not a lot of formality or pomp and circumstance around it, at all. It’s a very informal and very free-flowing dialogue.

Q. Is it ever an issue for you that you want to make sure you’re getting straight talk from your direct reports?

A. Yes, no question. Some people that were brought up in the hierarchy of life have trouble with that. But they don’t survive very long, honestly, in the companies I’ve run. I usually tell people upfront what to expect, and that I really want their feedback and their ideas, and if they think I’ve got a hair out of place or food stuck in my teeth, gosh, I want to know that.

Q. Was there an insight you had that, looking back, put your career on a different trajectory?

A. Some of it was luck. But I remember something that Mitt Romney told me at Bain. He said: “Greg, in any interaction, you either gain share or lose share. So treat every interaction as kind of a precious moment in time.” And I’ve always remembered that, because I think it’s really true. So what I’ve tried to do is have more conversations where I’m gaining share than losing share, to try to add value to everything. I pass on any opportunity I see that I can’t add value on.

Q. Tell me about your as-good-as-it-gets moment in business.

A. Being able to hand people checks, whether it was an on-time bonus to say thank you for helping us be on time, or whether it was a car for having perfect attendance, or just being able to hand employees checks. At Burger King we were able to do that, too. We had some big moments financially where we were able to just hand out checks to employees who helped us get there. Those are the best days, I think.

Q. Is there an effective time-management technique you’ve developed?

A. Nothing incredibly impressive, other than to never allow meetings to last very long. So we start on time and end on time. I think probably the biggest time-management thing is being on time. I do not run late. Growing up on a farm you’re just not late when it’s time to do chores or go to work. I grew up Mennonite and so that work ethic and timeliness was just ingrained in me from a very young age. It seems like if you run meetings on time and you don’t schedule them for too long, that time management kind of takes care of itself.

Q. And is there an ideal length of a meeting?

A. It depends a little bit on the meeting, but an hour at the most. Shorter is generally better.

Q. Do you have a favorite gadget?

A. I’m pretty addicted to the BlackBerry. I love the iPhone technology, and I’d like to find a way to switch completely to Apple because I think they’ve so figured out computing. It’s hard in business to make that leap when you’ve distributed systems that use I.B.M. and Microsoft so much. But I’m pretty addicted to that BlackBerry.

I started taking them away in meetings at Quiznos, but the C.F.O. there is just addicted to it, beyond probably what most people are, and he was just watching that light, and he wouldn’t answer it because I said you couldn’t answer your BlackBerry in this meeting. But he’d look at the light and the light would drive him nuts, so I had him turn it over. And then, of course, I took it. He was doodling during the meeting as we were talking, and when he got up to leave the room I grabbed the paper he was doodling on, and he had doodled a complete, to scale, picture of a BlackBerry. Subconsciously, he doodled one while we were sitting in the meeting. That’s how addicted he was to it. I actually still have this. I’m going to give it to him framed.

The technology can become a bit of a slave driver. It is so efficient, though. What I like is when the plane’s coming down, you can actually get the messages coming in and you can answer them while you’re taxiing in, and then you’re done. That piece of it is really nice.

Q. What do you do to recharge your batteries?

A. My kids are 20, 18 and 16, so we love spending time with them. We have a house in Beaver Creek, so we like going up there in summer and winter to spend time skiing, hiking, mountain biking, that kind of thing. Play a little bit of golf. Just really hanging out and trying to spend some time with them. I exercise at least an hour every day, if not an hour and a half or two hours. Mostly either running, or I can read on the Stairmaster, so I do the Stairmaster a lot, and then some situps and weights and stuff.

Q. Back to your e-mails that the staff at various companies have sent you — was there an e-mail that you remember that was the toughest? The most memorable?

A. If you are C.E.O., you get flame-thrower stuff constantly. Some e-mails are very heartfelt and moving, too. I’ve saved a few of those. Answering customer and employee e-mails keeps you grounded a little bit, because you’re in these meetings, and you can get a little bit in the ivory tower, and it keeps you kind of focused.

I’ve heard everything. I tell folks — because folks will often write a really nasty e-mail, and then write one back later and say, “Gosh, I’m sorry, I didn’t really mean it.” I say you really can’t offend me. I used to stand in the break room with the mechanics in Gate 86 in Newark. They were great guys but they were tough and had pipe wrenches in their hands. You can’t be any tougher.

One thing that I have very rigorously reacted to is absolutely no nasty e-mails from executives back to employees or back to franchise owners. Or to each other. If I intercept one of those, it’ll be a bad day. Another bad day for somebody is if you don’t respond to an employee or franchise owner within 24 hours. That is a very bad day. I had one lawyer who did that. He decided it wasn’t important, he had so much to do that he couldn’t respond within 24 hours. And I went and sat down with him and said, “It takes you just as long to respond quickly as it does slowly. It’s not a time management thing for you.” He just couldn’t get it, so he’s working somewhere else.

Q. If you had to choose another profession, what would it be?

A. I’d have probably gone into the ministry. I’d have probably gone into a profession where I feel I could help other folks. I’d like to say I’d have played on a P.G.A. tour, but that’s a remote possibility given my golf game.

Q. What’s your handicap?

A. I played in high school to about a four or five, and I probably play now to a 13-15. But I can get lower than that if I just play. I don’t play much. During ski season in particular, if I get a chance to go golfing for a weekend or going skiing for a weekend, I’ll always opt to go skiing.

Q. If you were interviewing different C.E.O.’s, what question would you ask to get some insight into how they manage and lead?

A. How are they motivating employees and managers at this particular juncture in the business cycle? And what do they consider to be important, in terms of what I’ll call the “shadow of the leader” that they cast over the organization at this difficult point in time.

Q. Now can you …

A. Answer your own question? I think it’s important to talk to people about how we’re in a fundamentally different world. Ask the question, “If compensation isn’t going to be the same for a while, where do you get your fulfillment in life?” Certainly, work is a big piece of that and work is rewarding well beyond compensation. But faith, family, friends and hobbies create real balance. The conversation I’ve had with a lot of people, both in large groups and small, is make sure you have balance in your life and make sure that all your fulfillment doesn’t come out of economic gain.

I’ve talked to a lot of people on Wall Street where their entire fulfillment came from the answer to, “Is my bonus bigger this year than last year?” Or, “If I worked 100 hours a week this year, can I work 101 next year?” It’s actually a great time for us as leaders to help people to step back and ask the question: “Where do I get the fulfillment in my life? And how do I make sure my job is a big piece of that?” I’ve found that employees who are fulfilled on a much broader basis in their lives usually do a much better job of work than those that are completely, single-mindedly focused on and get all their value out of work.

I think that’s one of the bigger questions we have as a society. We’ve gotten so used to every generation doing better economically than their parents. Are our kids going to do better than we’ve done? I hope so, but I’m not sure. So it seems like we ought to tell them that socioeconomic wealth is not the only, or even the most important, metric of personal happiness.

Source :  The New York Times


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