Mid Tier Consulting Firm Makes Some Wild Email Claims
November 16, 2010
I know it is a drag having to be a thought leader able to sell work. But with each passing month, I see wilder and wilder prognostications about the future. I am waiting for the Patriots Steelers game to begin and thinking about our new Intel Stream podcast, which complements our experimental IntelTrax Web log. Neither of these trial services does much speculation. We focus on what’s going on now.
A case in point is the lousy state of snail mail and email. I get quite a bit of both types, and frankly most of what I receive is crazy junk, wacky missives from art history majors who landed a job at dad’s public relations firm, or a handful of people who think I will revert back to my 25 year old, fun loving, 18 hour a day self.
I stumbled across this write up by tapping links in my iPad: “Social-Networking Services to Replace E-mail as Primary Vehicle for Interpersonal Communications for 20% of Business Users by 2014, says Gartner.” Gartner is one of the mid tier consulting firms that explains the world in unusual ways. The firm relies on a knock off or clone of the old dog-star-cash cow-question mark matrix. When I worked at Booz, Allen, I recall some of the partners’ envy of this nifty way to communicate with often-beleaguered executives at client firms.
A blue suit, white shirt, and discreet tie do not a Bain, BCG, Booz, Allen, or McKinsey consultant make. Underneath the costume — just everyday pretenders. Trick or treat is fun for kids, but maybe not so much fun for those paying for ill considered advice and prognostications built on partial or flawed data, assumptions and facts.
The company, it seems to me, appears to be increasing its handicapping of certain technologies and business trends. A good example is the idea that social networking will “replace” email. Hold on, Harpo. I still get a printed Yellow Pages, a newspaper on paper, and snail mail. New methods of communication complement other methods. In 48 months, my hunch is that messaging will follow the path of Twitter, Facebook, and RockMelt (the social browser built on Chrome). Even the young workers who are lucky enough to get jobs will be using a range of communication methods. Among them will be embedded social communication techniques, but the “replace” is rather stark and unsupported. As a wild and crazy statement, I think it ranks right up there with Google’s clever “move if you don’t like Street View” quip.
Here’s a passage that caught my attention:
From a vendor’s perspective, the market is consolidating around Microsoft and Research In Motion (RIM), the two market leaders. Gartner forecasts that by 2012, RIM and Microsoft will own 80% of the enterprise wireless e-mail software market.
What?
I thought the write up was about social media, and it really is a pitch for two companies who are in what I call defensive mode emerging as big winners. I am not going to get exciting about the lack of data in the write up. My hunch is that Gartner, like other mid tier consulting firms, feel the financial heat from growing costs, internal information technology challenges, push back from clients who want lower fees, and pressure from upstart consulting firms like Gerson Lehrman.
Firms like Gartner, 451, Ovum, and their ilk are not in the blue hip stratosphere. My opinion is that these and similar outfits are really marketers in Halloween costumes. The get ups make some folks look like McKinsey and Bain consultants but they are just average folks. The substance, methods, and client impact are just not there—no blue chippiness, which is not bad just not blue chippy.
Back to the wild assertion of “replace” the dog email.
My view about social communications is more conservative. I think that old geese like me will be pushed out by those who find most information within social media corrals. Nothing is wrong with this. However, in 48 months, change will be visible, just slow in large organizations. So the future looks like smaller, more flexible outfits relying more on social media but not exclusively. Big organizations in 48 months will look quite a bit like big organizations today in the US and Europe. Change will leave these dinosaurs standing in the field watching snow fall. A few will tweet the news I suppose.
Stephen E Arnold, November 16, 2010
Freebie unlike the speaking slots at certain consulting firms’ “objective conferences”.
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It seems as though social media marketing is already replacing email. My dad was talking to me about how most of the people in his office communicate via Facebook, instead of Microsoft Outlook. This seems like a great time to be involved with SEO consulting firms. From what I have been reading SEO consulting is a very lucrative market. This is a very informative post on a very pertinent issue, thanks for the information.