Tuesday, October 31
What's TLA about?
As I've said, over the next month I'm planning to write "an unhinged workplace comedy about the meaning of life, American business and world domination."
Some background: It's about this group of employees at TLA, a global consulting firm based in Utopia, Colo., with more than 2,000 employees serving clients on six continents. Integrating the full range of consulting capabilities, TLA is the one firm that helps government and commercial clients solve their toughest problems with services in strategy, operations, organization and change, and information technology.
TLA is committed to delivering results that endure. TLA's clients are the world's largest corporations, emerging growth companies, government agencies, and institutions, associations and individuals that want to change their organizations and the world for the better.
Its clients — in every industry sector and every country — face daunting challenges. They need to manage ever-deeper and faster change. They need to understand how mega-trends like globalization, industry consolidation, and discontinuities in traditional markets and products affect their organizations.
Since 1996, TLA has helped business leaders address their greatest challenges, from reorganizing for long-term growth to improving business performance and maximizing revenue. While TLA has earned a reputation for having a certain "mystique," there is no mystery to how we serve our clients. We apply a handful of core principles to every client engagement.
When you come to TLA, you will take on challenges that matter with people who matter in organizations that matter. You will find the choices you want and the experience you need to grow faster than you ever thought possible.
TLA team members work directly with clients, addressing complex problems for which there are no simple answers. We bring unusual, innovative, imaginative and even imaginary solutions with long-term impact on our clients’ most pressing issues.
At first glance, the consulting management business hardly seems to be in need of any serious retooling, or even being the subject of a NaNoNovel. Still, consultants profits are growing at a double-digit rate and earnings performance remains rock-solid. The results of TLA's most recent benchmarking study reveal that consulting asset managers generated an average pre-tax margin of 31 percent in 2005, an impressive 5-year high.
But below the numbers is a different picture. Our research shows that a full 41 percentage points of operating margin now separates the top- and bottom-third players, a disparity that has widened significantly over the past 3 years. Moreover, an increasing proportion of asset managers are now earning margins under 20 percent, as the bottom tier performers fall further behind the rest of the pack.
Unless these players move quickly to revamp their business models, the profit gap is almost certain to expand even further. TLA is here to help those underperforming organizations. And its here to help me write a satiric comedy of immense proportions. Or at least of over the top proportions.
TLA shares a common vision and mission. Its vision is to become the preferred provider of products and services that foresee and satisfy the needs of customers, balancing the highest level of satisfaction consistent with maximizing returns to stakeholders. Its mission is to monetize wealth as quickly as possible.
Some background: It's about this group of employees at TLA, a global consulting firm based in Utopia, Colo., with more than 2,000 employees serving clients on six continents. Integrating the full range of consulting capabilities, TLA is the one firm that helps government and commercial clients solve their toughest problems with services in strategy, operations, organization and change, and information technology.
TLA is committed to delivering results that endure. TLA's clients are the world's largest corporations, emerging growth companies, government agencies, and institutions, associations and individuals that want to change their organizations and the world for the better.
Its clients — in every industry sector and every country — face daunting challenges. They need to manage ever-deeper and faster change. They need to understand how mega-trends like globalization, industry consolidation, and discontinuities in traditional markets and products affect their organizations.
Since 1996, TLA has helped business leaders address their greatest challenges, from reorganizing for long-term growth to improving business performance and maximizing revenue. While TLA has earned a reputation for having a certain "mystique," there is no mystery to how we serve our clients. We apply a handful of core principles to every client engagement.
When you come to TLA, you will take on challenges that matter with people who matter in organizations that matter. You will find the choices you want and the experience you need to grow faster than you ever thought possible.
TLA team members work directly with clients, addressing complex problems for which there are no simple answers. We bring unusual, innovative, imaginative and even imaginary solutions with long-term impact on our clients’ most pressing issues.
At first glance, the consulting management business hardly seems to be in need of any serious retooling, or even being the subject of a NaNoNovel. Still, consultants profits are growing at a double-digit rate and earnings performance remains rock-solid. The results of TLA's most recent benchmarking study reveal that consulting asset managers generated an average pre-tax margin of 31 percent in 2005, an impressive 5-year high.
But below the numbers is a different picture. Our research shows that a full 41 percentage points of operating margin now separates the top- and bottom-third players, a disparity that has widened significantly over the past 3 years. Moreover, an increasing proportion of asset managers are now earning margins under 20 percent, as the bottom tier performers fall further behind the rest of the pack.
Unless these players move quickly to revamp their business models, the profit gap is almost certain to expand even further. TLA is here to help those underperforming organizations. And its here to help me write a satiric comedy of immense proportions. Or at least of over the top proportions.
TLA shares a common vision and mission. Its vision is to become the preferred provider of products and services that foresee and satisfy the needs of customers, balancing the highest level of satisfaction consistent with maximizing returns to stakeholders. Its mission is to monetize wealth as quickly as possible.
