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INSTITUTE
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News and Views |
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eNewsletter for the New England Consulting Community June 2007  |
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In this issue: IMCNE Member Profile Book Reviews
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Friday, July 13, 2007 Most consultants think of their services agreements as legal documents containing their rates and a litany of terms. Sometimes they sign the customer’s form contract without knowing what they are signing up to. What contracts really do is describe risks companies take in doing business. If consultants can see past the legalese, they can easily market and deliver their services in ways that reduce or shift away risks, without lawyers and without difficult negotiations. Eric Esperne of James River Consulting LLC www.jamesriverllc.com will discuss the five spectrums of risk in service contracts. Corresponding principles are identified and applied through examples to show how alter the risk equation. Consultants come away with a better and more fluid understanding of their relationships with clients and a more in depth understanding of services contracts. 12 page white paper on request. Target Audience: Service consultants in all industries and corporate buyers of consulting. Eric Esperne has over 15 years experience writing, negotiating and managing outsourcing and consulting services contracts for IT service providers and telecoms in and around Washington, DC. Walk-ins are welcome and you may purchase breakfast at the Café. Thursday, July 19, 2007 Studies show that 72% of all projects fail to reach their objectives. These failures represent approximately $100B a year in wasted capital. Given the importance of these projects to the strategic goals of their organizations, why do so many of them fail? Jim Stewart, PMP of JPStewart & Associates www.projmanage.com will introduce and discuss some of the more common reasons why projects fail and what we as consultants can do to prevent those failures. Target Audience: Any consultant or professional involved in projects. With over 20 years experience in IT, Jim Stewart has managed numerous multi-million dollar international infrastructure and software development programs. Currently he is principal of JP Stewart Associates, a strategic project consulting and training firm. As Program Manager for Genuity, Jim spearheaded the implementation of its award-winning $20M Virtual Private Network service. At Lotus, he was the senior consultant responsible for the international deployment of a comprehensive Notes-based system for IBM called PartnerInfo. Translated into 11 languages, PartnerInfo was rolled out internationally to many of IBM’s 40,000 business partners. Jim teaches project management at Brandeis University and recently finished providing PMP training to a major pharmaceutical group in Europe. He is a Project Management Professional (PMP) and a member of the Project Management Institute where he served a two-year term on the Board of Directors. Walk-ins are welcome and you may purchase breakfast at the Café.Strategic Partner Events — Check out our Calendar of Strategic Partner and Other Events on our web site for more information on events of interest. Click www.imcne.org/spcalendar.html, then click on the appropriate link for detailed information that could save you money. |
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| News from the Board Have you read a good business book lately? Do you have a question that you would love to ask a group of consultants? Are you one of our New England members that is tired of all our meetings being held in Boston? Do you have a challenge that you are facing and would like to get feedback? Do you have a case study that would fuel a good discussion? THEN USE THIS RESOURCE!! It takes about three minutes to fill out a Roundtable Proposal. You give us a title and description; we’ll publicize it and handle registrations. This program helps our members Get Smart, Get Known, Get Business. What are you waiting for? Download the form today from our Programs page (http://www.imcne.org/programs.htm) The Next Step in Your Professional Journey We have a good group of members that are going to pursue their CMC this spring. It’s not too late to join and take your career to the next level. For more information contact Glenn Bachman, CMC 401-635-0050 or Mary Adams or 781-729-9650. |
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IMCNE Member Profiles "My greatest personal success (read blessing), Ron says, is my family. I am also proud of the “group” in Benjamin; seven highly professional, talented and wonderful people." His biggest surprise is that he owns a business. "I always imagined I would stay in corporate to the end!" Ron added. Ten Things You Didn’t Know about Ron:
Learn more about Ron and his business by visiting his firm’s website http://www.benjamin-group.com/ The member profile was written by Lewis Green , the Founder |
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Book Reviews Maps for Modern Magellans: Charts for Captains of Commerce Maps for Modern Magellans captured my interest for two reasons: the unusual title for a business book and the book tag reading, every business can use a good map. In author Roger Anderson's own words, "This book is filled with maps, charts and tools to help you navigate the world of business." Roger is a scientist by training, and his vehicles of choice—maps and charts—attest to that. To be honest, most of the visuals are useless to a word guy like me. I'm not sure I understood any of them. On the other hand, the text is written in a simple, easy-to-understand manner, and is full of good ideas, business strategies and tactics, definitions, case studies and questions that every entrepreneur needs to ask. In my opinion, this book best serves entrepreneurs who don't have much business experience and newly promoted managers within any company. Those of us with lots of business experience in the corporate world and as entrepreneurs will find little new. However, those without experience will find lots to like about Maps for Modern Magellans. From the basic lesson that is often overlooked and causes more harm to business than one would believe, to questions every business person must ask, to case studies that teach us both what and not to do. (By the way, the basis lesson: "Charge more than it costs." This is a lesson I frequently have to teach my clients.) If you are an entrepreneur or a new manager buy this book. I recommend skipping Chapter 1, which seems a bit like filler, and start with Chapter 2, entitled Mind Your Own Business. Be cautious about some of the claims, such as this book will help you create great advertising. No book will do that. But pay attention to the concepts and to the life lessons that creep into the chapters. These are little jewels that help us better understand who we are and why we do what we do. Some of them may even convince you to change what you are doing, especially if you are unhappy. Reviewed by Lewis Green, IMCNE News & Views editor, and Chief Communications Office of L&G Business Solutions www.l-gsolutions.com Blue Ocean Strategy W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne I resisted reading this book last year because I don’t like “one size fits all” solutions to business problems. That’s what all the hype about this book made it sound like. But one of our colleagues in the IC Rating Community (http://icrating.com/AboutUs.html) who has trained with the authors, Tomasz Rudolf of Innovatika Poland (http://www.innovatika.com/) persuaded me to give it a try and it did win me over. The title refers to an open, “blue” ocean where there is little competition versus an ocean “red” with the bloody remains of battles with shark-like competitors. The contribution this book makes is a powerful and graphic way of comparing your company with its competition. It is called the “Strategy Canvas” and is drawn using the key factors of competition. The idea is to identify where you can reduce, eliminate, raise or create factors of competition to stake out a unique position in a market. Your own company and your competitors are graphed along a spectrum from low to high for each competitive factor. An example of how to apply this tool is outlined in the book. The [yellow tail] wine brand became successful very quickly by using a “blue ocean” strategy. This brand didn’t try to compete with 1600 U.S. wineries with a typical offering: a broad line, complex taste, or vineyard prestige. Instead, they marketed a social drink that had “simple fruity sweetness” that competed with all drinks, including wine, beer and cocktails, had fun packaging and ease of selection. Using the authors’ tools to graph this radically different strategy canvas helps illustrate how this played out for [yellow tail]—and is very powerful when looking at how to break out of your own “red ocean”. We have already been influenced in this thinking in our work with one client who faces unending and fierce competition. It’s powerful new tool in our toolkit and we recommend it for yours. Visit the authors’ website. http://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/ Review by Mary Adams, CMC, Trek Consulting LLC http://www.trekconsulting.com
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Share Your NewsShare news about your firm with our community by submitting information on collaborations with other members, upcoming speaking engagements, and new publications. Eligible publications are books or articles that have been published recently by a print or on-line magazine. We are happy to post a copy of your article on the IMCNE website if you send us a Word or .pdf document with the full text. To make next month’s newsletter, send your material by the third Tuesday of the month to . |
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| Our
Advertising Rates Would you like to advertise an event, product or service in this e-letter? Request our advertising fee schedule by emailing IMCNE's administrator at or by calling 800-696-7399. About IMCNE Learn more about IMCNE's programs, membership details and services to New England consultants by clicking here or calling us at 800-696-7399. News and Views Editor Lewis Green L&G Business Solutions Phone: 978-371-0823 Email: Mail: IMCNE "News & Views", P.O. Box 774, Westford, MA 01886 Copyright © 2007 IMC New England |
Ron Visocchi has been happily married (to the same woman) for 36 years, has two kids, a son, 25, who is a product marketing manager at Comcast and a daughter, 23, who is a cardiac nurse at Beverly hospital. He founded The Benjamin Group LLC in 2002, which is named Benjamin for his grandfather. The group's services focus on sales growth. For small companies, that means personalized management consulting, training, coaching, virtual sales management and mentoring. For larger companies, they bring in sales and marketing experts, just in time, to design and implement a strategy for sales growth.