Ignite Lab

One of our favourite confectionery companies has recently announced that it has set up an external Marketing Advisory Group to help its marketers steer a straight course through the social responsibility minefield – to make sure its marketing activity is not just legal but also reflects our sensibilities around the impact chocolate has on our society – particularly around fitness and obesity.

What does this say about the company’s approach to encouraging and embedding new and creative thinking internally?

Read on →

What do you think of when you hear the word mutual? Mutual friends? mutual interests? It means things we have in common with others that we can use to our advantage, right? The problem is that although such links are enthusiastically utilised in our day to day lives, they are often not exploited to their full potential in industry.

Read on →

The Sunday Times reported a couple of weeks ago that the government is considering setting up its own in-house management consultancy in a drive to spend less with external advisory firms such as McKinsey and KPMG.  The consulting arm would sit within Francis Maude’s Cabinet Office, which – with the recently announced help of Sir Philip Green – is attempting to squeeze inefficiencies out of central government and drive a harder bargain with private sector contractors.  Mr Maude wants to use this new consulting unit to share good ideas and technologies across departments, whilst at the same time encouraging good back office functions such as HR or Finance to effectively become shared service centres for other government departments.

With central government consulting spend estimated to be somewhere around £3 billion per annum, this is a great initiative if the reports are accurate.  And how can it best be made to work?  Ironically, by using consultants. Read on →