Engagement Examples
In 2007, Unisys Corporation, a $5 billion IT services company, wanted to differentiate itself from its many competitors in outsourced technical support services, a brutally competitive market. Unisys wanted to find out if there were better ways in which they could provide tech support to their customers. Since they didn’t feel they already had powerful insights in-house, they set about conducting a research project which included 240 North American companies and in-depth case examples at 12.
The March 2003 issue of the Harvard Business Review featured the cover article, "Bottom-Feeding for Blockbuster Businesses," by Deloitte Consulting's David Rosenblum, Doug Tomlinson and Larry Scott. The Bloom Group helped the authors develop and place the HBR article. The article was based on research that Deloitte conducted between 2000 and 2002 on the topic of "business model innovation."
It’s a familiar story in the professional services industry: An entrepreneur with a vision launches a firm focused on a specific business niche. Clients flock to the firm because of its expertise and easy-to-work-with culture. The firm grows quickly, enjoying double-digit growth each year. Over time, it expands its offerings to help clients fulfill other needs. Years later, it becomes apparent that most clients (as well as employees) have trouble identifying exactly who the firm is and describing what it does for clients. Lacking differentiation, the firm experiences slowing growth and a pressing need to refocus its efforts on the things it does better than its competitors.
The Bloom Group was contacted by Bob Gett and Mavis Chin, veterans of two of the fastest-growing IT consulting and services companies of the last 15 years (Cambridge Technology Partners and Viant). Their interest: finding a marketing firm that could help them determine the viability of, and client needs for, consulting and systems integration services related to open source software.
Professional services firms have long-standing relationships with trade associations and professional societies viewed as important to their businesses. Many see associations as an entry point for business opportunities with member companies. But given the non-profit status of associations, can they also be growth businesses? Can growth strategies that work in the for-profit world apply as well to the non-profits? 
DiamondCluster International, a $200 million global management consulting firm, wanted to increase market awareness of its expertise and leads for its consulting services. The firm had been getting inconsistent results from prior initiatives, and in 2005 turned to The Bloom Group for help with its intellectual capital development and marketing.
The Bloom Group has helped a number of professional services firms revamp their websites over the last three years. Most of them came to us after reading our study on how to organize the content of professional services websites. (See the article Subscribe to Our Newsletter
Subscribe to our newsletter, Thoughts on Thought Leadership, and you’ll get exclusive insights on new approaches to developing content, thought leadership marketing, case studies of B2B firms doing interesting things, and Q&As with leading marketers, researchers and publishers.
