I just read a very good report prepared by the IBM Institute for Business Value entitled, “Beyond Advertising, Choosing a strategic path to the digital consumer.” While the article itself doesn’t contain and new thinking, that I haven’t heard discussed across many of my peer networks and among the analyst community like Forrester Research, what does stand out is that IBM, a technology and business consulting company demonstrates it understands what most agencies and marketing services companies still fail to grasp. What it tells me is that instead of worrying about other agencies, especially the large traditional holding company ad agencies, my real competition is going to become more and more the big consulting firms who see the challenges of marketers for what they really are, business issues, that affect the very core of how a company operates and what will make it successful in the future.
The only solace I can have is the fact that while the big consulting firms can do a good job of identifying the problems, they are not equipped to actually produce integrated brands, marketing programs and technological infrastructure necessary to achieve the solutions they will recommend. That still leaves an open field to companies like Ascentium and Sapient and a handful of others. But we had better not slow down the innovation we bring to our clients, or Big Blue will be pushing us out the door.
