"Having good market intelligence is no longer optional in this day and age"
Rakesh Pabbi - Senior Partner
Super rich investors in mainland China are skittish towards robo investment advisers taking control of their investments, reflecting a major shift from the US where the asset management tool has enjoyed growing popularity, according to global consultancy McKinsey.
The investment and activity related to the InsurTech movement that began about 4-5 years ago show few signs of abating. If anything, the movement is transitioning into a new phase. But before even evaluating whether InsurTech is maturing, it is important to set some definitions and boundaries. Although some consider any tech firm with insurance solutions to be “InsurTech,” for our purposes, we are focusing on recent InsurTech startups, typically those that have been launched in the last five years. The question posed here is whether or not these startups are collectively maturing and moving beyond the initial stages of a startup effort.
The year 2017 was a landmark year for pharmaceutical industries in the US and Europe, with a sharp increase in the number of new molecular entities (NMEs) being approved in both geographies.
HCL Technologies Limited (HCL), a leading global IT services company, today announced the acquisition of C3i Solutions, a leader in multi-channel customer engagement services for the life sciences and consumer packaged goods (CPG) industries, from Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, New Jersey, U.S.A. (known as MSD outside of the United States and Canada).
Global consulting firm BearingPoint enjoyed a bumper year in 2017, with revenues up 12% compared to the year previous to a record level of €710 million and profitability up 18% year over year.
China has more smart city pilot projects than any other country, but still has room to improve, according to a report.
Over 1,000 smart city pilots are ready for or under construction worldwide, and China is home to about 500 of them, covering big and small cities, according to a report by international auditing and consulting firm Deloitte.
BCS Technology, a leading provider of Blockchain consulting and implementation services, today announced that it has been identified as a representative vendor in the Gartner “Market Guide for Blockchain Consulting and Proof-of-Concept Development Services,”(1) report based on their provision of strategic advice, creation of Proof-of-Concept’s, and helping clients take Proof-of-Concept’s into pilot or production
When Long Term Care Insurance was a fledging product, my role as an advisor was to help clients determine if paying the premium was needed based on the wealth they had accumulated. I thought that if someone had enough money to "self-insure" then they did not need to apply for the insurance. This thought process of using a financial ledger to determine if one needed to purchase Long Term Care insurance changed for me one summer several years ago.
Delta Capita, the international business & technology consulting and managed services firm, has announced a strategic alliance with The Field Effect, a London-based consultancy specialising in securities financing, clearing and collateral management.
Wavestone intends to accelerate international development with the acquisition of a UK consultancy in the coming month. The global consultancy has announced that it has entered into final negotiations to complete a 100% acquisition of the unnamed firm’s capital
A study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found that 23 per cent of the total 9.93 million jobs in the country’s banking, insurance and securities sectors will be affected, with entry-level staff engaged in repetitious daily operations bearing the brunt of any cuts
Four emerging technology clusters will define how automotive manufacturers, suppliers, and digital attackers compete and cooperate for growth. In banking, enlarged platform spaces will offer customers access to a wide range of products and services through a single gateway. In both industries, established players will need to rethink strategy, either by joining existing ecosystems or forging their own.
An analysis of mobility investments reveals how technologies and players are beginning to interact, and where new opportunities are starting to appear.
As digitization reshapes traditional industry boundaries, many are betting that an “automotive ecosystem” will be one of the first to develop. But what will it look like in practice, and how will we know when such a competitive shift really takes place?
As we have recently described, the coming ecosystems will comprise diverse players who provide digitally accessed, multi-industry solutions based on emerging technologies. In automotive, four such technologies known by the acronym ACES—autonomous driving, connected to the Internet of Things, electric, and shared mobility—are likely to be key. A constellation of different players, including OEMs and their suppliers, competing “frenemies,” and unexpected attackers, will aim to capture the opportunities these and other innovations will present.
Thanks to the findings of the Start-up and Investment Landscape Analysis (SILA), McKinsey’s proprietary, self-optimizing big data engine, we can now paint a more detailed picture of the evolving battleground. Through SILA’s semantic analysis of keywords and network analytics of relevant companies, clusters, and industry moves within the investment landscape, we identified ten technology clusters with more than a thousand companies combined that have received external investments since 2010 of about $111 billion. This figure does not include internal R&D expenses by automotive and technology companies, but it does include acquisitions and stakes in other businesses made by these companies.
In the past decade, the rate of mobility investments has increased nearly sixfold, and the median deal size has more than tripled. In 2016 alone, investments amounted to $31 billion, a little less than half of the total R&D spend by all automotive OEMs ($77 billion). Around 60 percent of the total investment volume went into very large, industry-shaping deals, whereas the rest went into a huge number of smaller deals. Notably, these investments were focused not on products but on the technologies underlying the changes in mobility. In other words, investors are betting on an ecosystem.
No less compelling is the evidence as to who the investors are. More than 90 percent of the investments identified by SILA have been made by tech companies, on the one hand, and venture-capital (VC) and private-equity (PE) firms, on the other. These two sectors are investing about equal amounts (that is, slightly more than 45 percent of the total investments); OEMs and major suppliers make up the remainder. And while VC and PE firms are making these investments because they expect significant growth and will likely look to exit in the foreseeable future, tech companies seem intent on staying put—staking out emerging control points and getting ahead of critical trends.
Our SILA analysis shows ten major clusters based on the four ACES technologies (exhibit). Among these technologies, autonomous driving received the largest amount of funding. Sharing solutions came in second, with around one-third of the funding—surprisingly little, given the media attention. In both areas, the investments were dominated by a few large investments in major companies (for example, Didi, Mobileye, and Uber); autonomous driving also had a long tail of smaller investments in technology start-ups.
Sourced From Mckinsey &Company
The greatest challenge businesses are facing at the moment is the threat of disruption. Employing emerging technologies - like VR - can help them not only survive but thrive
The challenge in overcoming disruption is to map out the potential barriers that an organization could face, 'separate out the reality from the hype, and then look at strategies to transform risk into opportunity'
Social business platform LinkedIn has unveiled the most attractive companies to work for in the UK. The professional services industry was a big winner in the annual ranking, with three firms breaking into the top ten in 2018, and another being included in the top 25. Bricks and mortar retail brands meanwhile saw their stock as employers tumble, having dominated last year’s proceedings
Baringa Partners has expanded its global presence with the opening of a new office in Sydney, Australia, aiming to replicate the success of its UK business which is currently rated the number one management consultancy in energy, utilities and the environment by the Financial Times.
Consultants at prestigious consulting firms like McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company are often the best and the brightest. They must complete a rigorous hiring process that tests their intellect and stamina. If selected, they will be compensated handsomely for their work and will have earned a competitive advantage over peers in the job market.
The consulting arms of UK accounting firms—including the Big Four—account for nearly 40 per cent of all revenues earned in the UK consulting market in 2017 and make up the fastest growing firm segment…
The consulting arms of accounting firms—a group dominated by the Big Four—continue to dominate the UK consulting market, growing by 7.3 per cent[1] to £3bn in 2017, compared to the wider consulting market growth of 6.1 per cent to £7.8bn[2] during the same period. A combination of organic and inorganic growth helped to make this the fastest growing firm type in the market in 2017.
These figures are published today (26th March 2018) in a new report from Source Global Research, the leading research and strategy firm for the global management consulting industry. The report says that the consulting arms of accounting firms continue to dominate the UK market, accounting for nearly 40 per cent of all revenues earned and winning the majority of work in the enormous financial services market, thanks in large part to their reputation for risk & regulation services.
The report also says that these firms are eager to build up their digital arsenals as the value of digitisation[3] work performed in the UK consulting market jumped from £1.7billion in 2016 to almost £3billion in 2017. With this rapid rate of growth in mind, accounting firms are working hard to become the go-to firms for big, digital transformation projects. Digital work now represents a huge 37 per cent of the total UK consulting market.
Fiona Czerniawska, Director of Source Global Research said:
The Big Four have once again outperformed the competition in the UK consulting market. Their size allows them to offer a great breadth and depth of both sector and service line knowledge, which may make them a natural fit for the rapidly growing digital transformation market. However, it’s not at all certain that they will ultimately be successful in staking out this territory all for themselves, as many clients still see them offering less technology expertise than traditional technology firms and less strategy expertise than strategy houses.”
The Source report also says that digitisation is colonising all projects and all traditional consulting services, absorbing parts of strategy, operational improvement, risk, regulatory, and HR & change management work. For instance, over half of all strategy work in the UK is now digital-related, an even bigger share than in the technology service line, where over 40 per cent of all work is driven by digital.
Fiona Czerniawska, Director of Source Global Research added:
“From being largely concentrated in the technology and strategy service lines, digital is now starting to make up a part of all consulting services. In fact, its speed of colonisation is such that within the next 18 months, we believe it will no longer be necessary to label anything as digital in the UK consulting market – as everything will be digital in one way or another.”
The Source report also points out that, despite UK consulting revenues continuing to climb, the market is going through a turbulent period, owing to both global economic instability and the domestic juggernaut of Brexit. The degree to which Brexit is affecting consulting demand is questionable, with most consultants interviewed for this year’s Source report saying that, thus far, “it has been a bit of a non-event”.
Zoë Stumpf, Head Analyst at Source Global Research concluded:
“Brexit is the biggest question mark hanging over the sector. It still has potential to be a huge driver of demand, if no reciprocal arrangements with the EU are made, or something of a red herring, if deals are struck and business carries on more or less as usual. Only time will tell.”
Despite this domestic and global economic uncertainty, Source expects the UK consulting market to maintain its current rate of growth, expanding another 6 per cent this year.
Sourced from Top Consultant News
For many decades, technology has changed in a way which until only recently would have been unimaginable. Put simply, we live in a time of unparalleled technological advances. Fast forward to 2050, and the way we live will be completely shaped by the inventions and breakthroughs made today.
The global economic recovery has been blighted by sluggish productivity over its nine-year duration. The corporate response to this is often to slash wages in the hope that reducing expenditure can enhance profits – and high wages are often blamed for heightened inflation and slow growth. However, as wages remain stagnant, and inflation continues to hamper consumer spending regardless, a new study has suggested that enabling ‘demand’, or increasing wages, may be the key to stronger growth.
With a healthcare landscape driven by the advent of precision medicine and empowered patients, it would seem that “science has overtaken the system”. This includes the recognition that patients are often willing to accept greater risks from the treatment of life-threatening and severely debilitating diseases in return for earlier access, especially when there are no alternative treatments available. This underlines a “need for speed” in biomedical innovation: more rapid development accelerated approval and – crucially – timely access to transformative medicines. These developments challenge established clinical development pathways and put pressure on regulatory and particularly HTA (health technology assessment) processes.
