Experio Solutions Renames Itself Hitachi Consulting

Transcription

1 Event Summary Experio Solutions Renames Itself Hitachi Consulting Abstract: Hitachi Consulting has an opportunity to create a market position for itself somewhere between the IT service boutiques and giants, such as Accenture, if its rebranding is successful. By Michele Cantara and Laura McLellan Strategic Planning Assumption Seventy-five percent of all IT services branding initiatives fail within the first year (0.8 probability). Publication Date:2 June 2003

2 2 Experio Solutions Renames Itself Hitachi Consulting Event Analysis On 6 May 2003, Experio Solutions, the Dallas, Texas-based IT consulting arm of Hitachi, announced that it had become Hitachi Consulting. The renamed company's portfolio now includes strategy and business improvement solutions, customer solutions, supply chain solutions, technology solutions, and enterprise solutions. These solutions are offered to Fortune 2000 companies in the consumer goods, energy, high-tech, services and manufacturing industries. Becoming a $1 Billion IT Professional Services Vendor Experio Solutions was formed from Hitachi's acquisition of the e-business consulting unit of Grant Thornton in October By 2003, Experio Solutions had expanded its coverage to the entire United States. Through organic growth and a series of acquisitions sponsored by Hitachi, it enriched its technology and vertical industry capabilities. Hitachi announced plans to build Experio into a $1 billion global service provider by In July 2001, Experio acquired WaveBend Solutions, the IT consulting arm of BDO Seidman. In September 2001, Virtualogic, a Hitachi-owned IT consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. was folded in. In November 2001, Experio acquired Tactica, a $40 million, Dallas-based consulting firm with recognized expertise in energy, financial services and logistics. In July 2002, Experio Solutions hired 370 consultants from Arthur Andersen Business Consulting, expanding Experio's presence in Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles and Seattle. The former Andersen consultants augmented Experio's vertical expertise in energy, manufacturing and distribution and provided Experio with new vertical expertise in high tech, telecommunications, consumer packaged goods and government. Hitachi Consulting reports to Hitachi's $15.8 billion Information and Telecommunications Systems Division. Hitachi has 73 companies in North America, with 14,600 employees and $7.5 billion in sales. Approximately 11 percent of Hitachi's worldwide revenue come from the United States. Gartner Dataquest estimated Hitachi Consulting's 2002 revenue at from $120 million to $140 million. As of May 2003, Hitachi Consulting had more than 700 consultants in the United States. Branding Platform The brand promise from Hitachi Consulting is: "At Hitachi Consulting, our people work with you to inspire your next success. We commit to understand your needs, deliver practical solutions and transfer knowledge to you. Your result is measurable value." The key messages are: "We are committed to our client's success. "We deliver measurable value, quickly Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 2 June 2003

3 3 "We transfer knowledge and skills to our clients on each engagement. "We combine the innovation and stability that comes from being a part of Hitachi with the agility and client focus we've always had." Internally, Hitachi Consulting will use the slogan, "our experience, your results," to unify its people around this common frame of mind. Although Hitachi Consulting is part of $68 billion Hitachi, it has a very conservative budget for rebranding. As a result, it plans to take a focused, cost-effective approach to branding, using limited advertising while focusing on inculcating the appropriate behavior into employees to engender a consistent customer experience that highlights brand attributes. Between May and September 2003, it will primarily focus on establishing and refining its brand image with its current accounts. In September, Hitachi Consulting plans to ramp up its market awareness efforts with targeted thought leadership activities. Service Offerings Hitachi Consulting has used this branding opportunity to relaunch the company's services portfolio. It offers full-life-cycle consulting and systems integration (SI) services across a range of industries: consumer products, technology and communications, manufacturing, services, and energy and utilities. Hitachi Consulting's portfolio encompasses business strategy and operations consulting, as well as customer relationship management, supply chain management and external resource planning solutions. Hitachi Consulting also offers technology capabilities ranging from portals, enterprise application integration, business intelligence, custom integration and development. The following are Hitachi Consulting's service offerings: Strategy and business improvement solutions Strategy and business transformation solutions Strategy execution Business improvement assessment Enterprise transformation Merger integration optimization Enterprise performance management Business process re-engineering Change management Finance business solutions Finance organization strategy and transformation Finance performance management Finance business intelligence Finance and accounting operations Strategic cost management 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 2 June 2003

4 4 Experio Solutions Renames Itself Hitachi Consulting Strategic decision analysis IT strategic solutions Strategic information systems planning Enterprise architecture design and delivery IT operational effectiveness Software selection Software development framework Customer solutions Sales and channel solutions Sales and channel strategy Sales and channel optimization Sales and channel automation Marketing solutions Customer care strategy Customer care optimization Customer care automation Product solutions Product life cycle management Supply chain solutions Planning and scheduling Supply chain planning Production planning and scheduling Demand planning and forecasting Inventory planning Network optimization and planning Master planning/capacity planning Distribution management Distribution planning Operations, maintenance and construction Event management Warehouse management Transportation management Order visibility and tracking Sourcing and procurement Product life cycle management 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 2 June 2003

5 5 Supplier management Supplier collaboration Strategic sourcing Enterprise solutions Software assessment and selection Human resources management solutions Financial management solutions Operations management solutions Built on J.D. Edwards, Lawson, Oracle, PeopleSoft, SAP and Siebel Technology solutions Business portals Customer self-service portals Employee self-service portals Supplier portals Business intelligence Digital/executive dashboards Business intelligence applications Data warehousing Custom departmental solutions J2EE architected solutions.net architected solutions Information integration Enterprise application integration Enterprise content management Data extraction, transformation and loading IT infrastructure Gartner Dataquest Perspective Business continuity and security Communication components and facilities Operating systems and directory Gartner Dataquest has made several observations regarding Hitachi Consulting's branding, reintroduced solution offerings and overall business strategy Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 2 June 2003

6 6 Experio Solutions Renames Itself Hitachi Consulting Brand Attributes and Campaign Taking on the Hitachi Consulting brand helps the company with the following issues: The former Experio Solutions was built up from various acquisitions over the past two and one-half years. The Hitachi Consulting brand enables development of a unified culture that employees from its various acquisitions can rally around. The new brand also allows the company to reinforce its relationship with Hitachi and provides an opportunity to relaunch its service offerings. The brand also helps the company with market awareness among new prospects. Where Experio never garnered significant market awareness, most prospects will be aware of Hitachi as a major global company, even if they are not aware of Hitachi's service capabilities. The new brand also gives the company more traction within Hitachi to cultivate Hitachi companies as clients or as go-to-market partners. Hitachi Consulting has selected brand attributes that are consistent with its culture, credible with its customers and memorable if not uniquely differentiating in a crowded market. Unlike many of its competitors, Hitachi Consulting has focused the bulk of its rebranding efforts on educating its employees on the importance of these brand attributes and the collaborative, result-focused experience that employee behavior must reinforce with customers. Rather than spending tens of millions of dollars on advertising, Hitachi Consulting is one of the few consulting and SI companies to rely primarily on employee-driven customer experience to initially establish its brand identity. In view of Hitachi Consulting's meager marketing budget, this approach seems wise. The Hitachi corporate tag line is "Inspire the Next." Hitachi Consulting has an opportunity to play off that tag line, with variations, in its internal and external branding communications. It has adopted the Hitachi "sunrise" symbol to precede its new name. Probably temporarily, its Web site shows Hitachi Consulting (the business and technology consulting arm of Hitachi) to increase identification of its market category. The fact that the new name, Hitachi Consulting, had not already been taken by one of Hitachi's more than 1,000 companies must have been a pleasant surprise at Experio. Consulting functions already exist in many of Hitachi's companies. Gaining approval to attach the word "consulting" to the Hitachi name should be counted as a major win. Additionally, the name Hitachi Consulting is broad enough to encompass other IT services market categories if the company chooses to expand beyond business and IT consulting. Solution Offerings While Hitachi Consulting has a comprehensive portfolio of services spanning business strategy, enterprise application solutions and technology capabilities, its portfolio is not new. These are the same 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 2 June 2003

7 Recommendations services that the company had been delivering as Experio. The company is wise to reinforce the range of its service portfolio in this branding launch, while introducing the new capabilities in business strategy consulting and PeopleSoft solutions it acquired through the former Andersen practices. How Will Hitachi Consulting Become a $1 Billion Company? With an estimated $120 million to $140 million in annual revenue, Hitachi Consulting has a long way to go before it reaches its goal of becoming a $1 billion global professional services company. To generate $1 billion in annual revenue, Hitachi Consulting will need to grow to approximately 5,000 consultants, or expand into other IT services market categories. It is unlikely that the company will be able to reach its goal through organic growth. Although ample consulting resources are available for hire because of the sluggish economy, organic growth would not provide the company with established customer relationships and quality pipeline. Gartner Dataquest recommends that Hitachi Consulting continue to acquire consulting and other IT or business service companies that complement its vertical industry focus and expand its presence in regions beyond North America. As a $68 billion global corporation, Hitachi has the means to sponsor this. For Hitachi Consulting Hitachi Consulting has an opportunity to create a market position for itself somewhere between the boutique IT service firms and giants such as IBM and Accenture. Its new name should make it easier to develop a strong go-to-market "with" strategy, because name recognition of Hitachi will open more alliance doors than Experio did. In addition, the new name should make it easier to internally cultivate other Hitachi companies as clients, alliances and influencers. The following factors could hold Hitachi Consulting back: Management changes In April, Hitachi Consulting named a new president and COO, Michael Travis, a seasoned ex-andersen Business Consulting executive who joined Experio in Often, a change at the top means a period of semi-paralysis, as tiers of managers wait to see what the change means for them. Travis has committed to bring this round of change to closure quickly especially with a new brand launch. All managers must be singing the same positive tune. Hitachi Consulting has chosen to concentrate initially on internally inculcating the new brand promise and messages with employees to create a mindset that translates into consistent customer experiences. During the next four to five months, Hitachi Consulting will focus on a relationships campaign with current accounts. Consequently, a lack of attention because of management changes would be detrimental Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All Rights Reserved. 2 June 2003

8 8 Experio Solutions Renames Itself Hitachi Consulting Money Successfully executing an external branding campaign frequently means spending up to 5 percent of a company's revenue for an extended multiyear period. Hitachi Consulting will try to squeak by with modest funding, focusing on a mix of market activities that are high on public relations and low on advertising. While Gartner Dataquest has advised in the past that service branding on $5 a day is possible, flawless execution will be required to make the impact Hitachi Consulting needs to be put on its prospects' shortlists. Marketing must be a strength of this company if Hitachi Consulting is to become more thanaminortier2player. Focus A company of 700 consultants cannot be all things to all people. Hitachi Consulting's stated portfolio is very broad, as are its targeted vertical industries. Branding itself as a full-service business and IT consulting services provider and targeting thought leadership in a wide range of industry and solutions areas may be attempting to bite off more than it can chew. If Hitachi Consulting prioritizes and executes well, it has a good chance of success. Key Business Issues What are successful strategies for branding? How can IT service providers with similar portfolios differentiate themselves in the marketplace? This document has been published to the following Marketplace codes: ITSV-WW-DP-0503 For More Information... In North America and Latin America: In Europe, the Middle East and Africa: In Asia/Pacific: In Japan: Worldwide via gartner.com: Entire contents 2003 Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice