The anti-iPad

Interesting viewpoint in MIT’s technology review on what the market for tablets and apps looks like in a developing country. Essentially (in India)  the interviewee is targeting to sell a ~$80 tablet that has comes with an unlimited data plan for $2 a month (yes, two; not a typo!). Worth a quick look if you’re interested in any developing markets.

 

Management consulting firms are on fire

Nice little article from the Economist on the state of the management consulting world.

Summary: The top firms (MBB) are doing well and growing. The middle tier and below are merging and/or bolstering their capabilities, while the “Big Four” try to move up.

Also, if you are wondering what the “glamor” lifestyle of a consultant looks like, look here. This is bang on.

BCG CEO interview

Interview with the CEO of BCG. Most of the interview seems bland to me; the only interesting fact seems to be that BCG is growing at ~10% a year based on the article’s numbers.

Humor: A solution for boring conference calls?

Sales doesn’t have to be sleazy

Young consultants are often enamored with the “case” rather than how the case was sourced/sold. If only it were that easy. Cases don’t appear from thin air. Sales is the lifeblood of all businesses, including consulting. Unfortunately, there are not a lot of books that do a good job of highlighting the key traits of good sales people.

I just finished a neat little book (Life’s a pitch by Broughton) that may bridge that gap. It uses a wide variety of examples – from a seller in a market in Morocco, to the pitchman for infomercials on TV; there’s never a dull moment. It is very well written with lots of humor and empathy (rather than just trite ‘sales tactics’). Most importantly it emphasizes (and shows with examples) how one does not have to be the “sleazy car salesman” type to be successful (thank god; otherwise I would fail miserably).

I would recommend this to all consultants that are either Partners (or nearing that zone).

Multi taskers 3 times less productive

Interesting little piece from HBR that ‘proves’ that multi-tasking doesn’t work. In fact, the data shows the non-multi-tasker to be ~3x more productive.

 

Let me know if you need the article.

The definitive text for big data?

The weekend edition of the WSJ had a good review of a new Big Data book.

I would normally yawn (since there is so much flipping hype about this), but what caught my eye is the fact that one of the authors is a correspondent for the Economist (https://twitter.com/kncukier).

Looks like a good one to pick up.