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Solutions Integrator Brain Power
Solutions Integrator Brain Power
8
W I N N I N G S I R A T E G I E SF O R
T H E I N T E G R A T I O NC O M M U N I T Y
l f A n s w e r T h i niks
braIn
o
i n d e e da " g i a n t
ower
brain,"as CTO
A [ l a nF r a n k
d e s c r i b e si t , t h e n
F r a n ks i t s s q u a r e t y
in the frontal
l o b e .H e b e t i e v e s
h e i s b u i t d i n gt h e
lT-services
firm of
tomorrow,
t h r o u g ht h e
m e t h o d o l o g yo f
thought-process
o p e r a t o r sa n d a
m a r k e tv i s i o no f
the "extended
e n t e r p r i s e .S" e e
whatyou think.
BY CURTISF.
FRANKLINJR.
EDITOR'S NOTE: AnswerThink
Consutting
Group based on contributions to the
o talk with Allan Frank, chief techni- Miami,FL knowledgebase and that kind of
cal officer ofAnswerThink Consult- (30s)37s-800s thing.
ing Group, is to let a torrent of ideas www.answerthink.com
sweepyou along. The thoughts come fast and It soundslike a keything you hadto
furiously, with concepts from mathematics, Founded:April1997 do wascastoff traditional notions
information theory, businessstrategy,and pop Employees:401 of corporate turf-building within
culture all colliding and blending to build Keyexecutives:TedFernandez, CEO;AtlanFrank,
CTO; AnswerThink.
imagesof thoughts and theones. UlyssesKnotts,executiveVf salesandmarketing The value propositions for us in
In early 1997 Nlan Frank, Ted Fernandez, Key vendor partners: Aurum Software,Oracle, solutions is to provide more
and Ulysses Knotts, three of the most influen- PeopleSoft,SunMicrosystems value through more experience.
tial partners in KPMG Peat Marwick, walked Corecompetencies:Process improvement,project You want repeatability. If I've
out on the same day. The company they manaSement, lT strategy,
technologyarchitecture dorre something five times
formed, AnswerThink Consulting Group, is andintetration,networkdesign, applicationdevel- befbre, and I can bring to the
now plowing some of tle same professional- opment,database implementation table experience of how I've
servicesfields as their alma mater-but with an Biggestmanatement challenge:To grow as an done it well and not well, that's
approachthat is unique to the younger fum. integratororganizedalonS strateSichorizontat, a solid value proposition.
Senior Editor Curtis Franklin recendy sat ratherthanvertical,competencies N{ost integrators focus on
down with Allan Frank to discussthe struc- *'hirt clients do at the physical
tures that make AnswerThink a model for something else, our clients are much like a laver. Their svstemslook at the
the IT-services companies of tomorrow, and web ofinterrelated value chains. functions and then lsk how systemsenhance
what the three founders hope to achievewith The extended-enterprisemodel provides them. That set of intellectual Lego blocks
their creation. a ger.reric paradigm for how we help our has nothing to do u'itl.r people; it has to do
clients deal with these new problems. with what people do-functions.
Sotutions{ntegrator:
Youmentionedbeingexcited I'll give you an examplein BPR [business
about forminga companywith a particularvision. ls this oystalline structurereflectedin the organi- process re-enginecringl. The first year,
What makesthis so exciting? zationalstructure of what you'rebuilding,or are everybody played rvith tl.ris from the big,
AilanFrank:There are so many dimensionsto you following a moretnditional model but with a high-impact side-hou'can we make more
the excitcment. Having been in consulting different intellectualoverlay? money, rightf Let's cnhrnce the revenue-
since the 1970s, I now have the opportunity That's why I said it is so exciting-it's multi- generatingprocess.So th$'$,ent around and
to create something. It's almost like a crys- dimensional. Even the intellectual overlay has said, "Let's give even'body a laptop."
talline structure: If it has the proper symme- multiple dimensions. Competitive advantage Somehow. then. sales-fbrceautomation
try to it, that crystal will grow with that in today's world has to come from under- was born out of this rvhole notion. And what
symmetry. Similarly, if you build a flawed, standing that the experienceof working with did it really dol Contact management.Yes,
asymmetricalstructure, the degree of error us provides profoundly different outcomes they could log in and look at inventory sta-
gets worse and worse. In a larger organiza- for our clients. Our only lasting competitive tus quicker. Yes, they could maybe pull down
tion so much energy gets applied to organi- advantage comes liom how we think and some data. But the last time I checked, these
zational inertia, whether it's politics or just integrate knowledge. So the other part of have nothing to do with closing a sale.
dealing with the issuesof the day. AnslyerThink is this notion of how we think Closing a sale is all about knowing your
We're effectively a giant brain. We offer about a problem, how we kind of fold around customer, understandir-rg the customer's
the combined intellectual capital, experi- a solution, and then how we execute. business,and being able to articulate how the
ence, and knowledge of the people in Very early on we invested a significant product or service can add value. What's real-
AnswerThink, either from the basic skills amount of money in a technology infrastruc- ly going on is much more inside his head. If
and competencies that they bring to the ture. The Big Six were always early adopters I could press a button and have the system
table or from having done problem-solving of Lotus Notes and similar kinds of things, give me the answersto the questions inside
for similar clients in the past. We wanted to and it made a lot of sense.But if you read all my master salesman'shead, then I could take
create an intellectual framework that provid- the industry rags about knowledge manage- him under my arm and that would help me
ed us with some consistency around ment, you will hear that the one big impedi- close the sale.So we've created this thought-
"extended enterprise." ment is culture-the behavior of people and processlayer.
We have a clear vision of our competitive the desire to share. We've created a set of generic thought-
advantage-a world-view of where our If the entire intellectual capital of the expe- process operators for ourselvesto allow us to
clients sit. That world-view is centered on rience of the individuals in AnswerThink can work on this level. Once I write them down
the notion of the extended enterprise.The be focused on every problem, that's powerfiil. in litde pictures, I can say "That's what it
industrial business model is dead. The So the other key differentiator is what we looks like! Boy, that's ugly." Then I can apply
receivable of one company is the payable of would call a knowledge-enabled delivery operatorsof refinement on it.
the other, and whether you use phrases like process.Even our compensation model-our Well, how do you optimize thought
((integrated
"supply chain," business," or reward system-was right from day one: Drocessif vou don't write it down! So we