FREE ESSAY ON ANALYSIS OF BOOZ,ALLEN AND HAMILTON

ANALYSIS OF BOOZ,ALLEN AND HAMILTON

Introduction
Booz-Allen & Hamilton is one of the world's largest management consulting firms.
Traditionally, the firm had decentralized regional offices serving clients independent of
other offices. This made cooperation between offices difficult, which was hurting
company's overall performance. To overcome this problem they came up with a Vision 2000
plan under which the company was divided into three regions which were further
sub-divided (see exhibit 1). This was the first phase of the plan and the company was
considering implementation of the second phase which was to globally integrate all the
three regions.
Advantages of Vision 2000 plan
? The biggest challenge that the company was facing was cooperation between different
offices but this problem was solved because of the new compensation plan.
? It made the geographic expansion easier as the offices now shared the staff within the
same region.
? The Target Client concept helped the company in developing long-term relationships with
the clients which resulted in increasing revenues (see exhibit 2).
? The Mentoring program resulted in development and evolution of better consultants. It
also helped the company in serving the personal needs of the consultants and provided as
a skill set for mentors to become partners.
? The extensive training programs that consisted of four delivery channels really helped
in training and increasing the efficiency of the consultants.
? The globally integrated structure of knowledge sharing through different programs gave
the company a competitive edge over its competitors.
? Through the Knowledge On-Line databases, the consultants could get considerable amounts
of information about the clients and could also get knowledge and expertise of other
consultants from all over the world. These information databases helped consultants serve
the needs of clients better with analysis formulated by other consultants. 
? Through the knowledge sharing amongst innovation teams, the company used to come up
with solutions on particular problems.
? The monitoring of the engagement teams through information professionals also helped in
keeping a check on team's performance. Also they helped the team to put the knowledge
gained after the engagement for the use of the other consultants in the future.
? Greater integration and communication between teams working on the same client helped
in understanding and serving the client better.
? Higher growth in revenues and Profits was achieved against competitors (see exhibit
3).
Disadvantages of Vision 2000 plan 
? The staffing and planning process became very difficult and complex because the company
wanted to give the clients the best consultants possible and tried it's best to match the
consultant's expertise to the client's needs. 
? Cultural Differences and higher demand for expert consultants also created a problem in
the allocation of consultants.
? High cost and inefficiencies were also associated with allocating management.
? Lot of times consultants didn't want to move from their original places of practice to
where the client was located and therefore the strain of traveling and moving affected
their performance.
? Consultants often wanted to broaden their knowledge by shifting into different industry
groups making expertise in one group shorthanded.
Recommendations
After looking at the above advantages and disadvantages of the vision 2000 plan, I
recommend that they should not globally integrate their three regions into one because of
the following reasons:
? Already the company is facing problems because of cultural differences and further
integration would increase these differences.
? The cost of traveling and communications would increase by further integration because
of larger distances.
? The strain of traveling and moving would also increase which would result in high staff
turnover and would also affect staff performance.
? Already the staffing and planning process is complex and difficult and further
integration would make it worse.
? Without global integration, the company could very well manage the projects of its very
important client -IAL all around the world through its advanced communication and
knowledge sharing methods.
? The main benefit that is associated with the global integration is that better staff
knowledge and expertise can be utilized from all over the world but the company to a
large extent is already successful in doing that through its advanced knowledge sharing
methods.
So instead of globally integrating, I think they should focus on their current strengths
such as building long term relationships with their clients, recruiting and retaining
more expert consultants and making the full use of their knowledge and expertise. 
The company can use secondary practices to aid developing markets and then capture them
as future clients. Rather than wait for clients to emerge, the company can take a
'nurturing' approach and through educational practices (such as lectures and seminars)
they can guide potential clients to growth. Although this may seem to be contradictory to
their Geographic Footprints concept I feel it can be beneficial to the firm.