Introduction: Where Are We Now?

‘E-business changed everything’, said one senior consultant I talked to. ‘We had to refocus everything we did. It challenged who we were and what value we could bring to clients: The late 1990s saw the emergence of a whole new generation of consulting firms — firms like IXL, Sapient, Scient and Razorfish — all of whom were growing phenomenally fast, even by the generous standards of the conventional consulting industry. They were walking through a door thrown open by clients dissatisfied with the level of ebusiness expertise on offer from the majority of their existing advisers. What these clients wanted was in-depth, specialist knowledge of e-business and hands-on, practical experience of implementing e-business ideas. What they didn’t want — and this is what they largely saw themselves getting — were ERP consultants, who’d received token e-business retraining and whose services were little more than a firm’s existing portfolio, with an ‘e’ stuck on the front. ‘Pigs with lipstick’ is how one person put it in retrospect. By contrast, these new firms appeared to offer fresh ideas, a new way of doing things and, above all, a dedicated focus on the new economy.