Denver city inspectors for marijuana licensing asked the Board of Ethics for its blessing to work as paid consultants to the cannabis industry elsewhere.
The board's answer was a resounding no. Its advisory opinion cites concerns about potential conflicts of interest and bad appearances, saying such work would violate the city's Code of Ethics.
When the board discussed the inspectors' request for an ethics opinion last week — before issuing its formal guidance Tuesday — chairman Brian Spano spoke more plainly.
"I just think it's too close a call to be a paid consultant in the industry you're regulating for the city," Spano said. That would be true, he added, even if potential clients aimed to open businesses outside Denver or even Colorado.
The inspectors' request reflects some remaining uncertainty as Denver and Colorado traverse the new landscape of legal recreational marijuana.
Denver has drawn praise for its efforts to regulate retail marijuana. Both government officials and entrepreneurs in other states that have followed suit more recently have been looking to learn from the city's experience.
Jered P. Garcia, the chief business license inspector for Denver's Department of Excise and Licenses, said in his Sept. 9 request for the ethics opinion that his staff members "have been approached on several occasions to do consulting for the marijuana industry."
But they had not yet done so while they waited for a green light. Dan Rowland, a spokesman for the Office of Marijuana Policy, noted that the employees followed an ethics rule requiring them to seek supervisor approval, and potentially an ethics opinion, before beginning any outside business activity.
read more: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28865714/denver-gives-red-light-inspectors-consulting-marijuana-industry
Monday, September 28, 2015
Wednesday, September 23, 2015
Marcum Search begins consulting practice in Fort Lauderdale
Marcum Search LLC, the executive recruiting affiliate of accounting and advisory firm Marcum LLP, has launched a national consulting practice based Fort Lauderdale.
The Consulting Division will place certified consultants for engagements averaging three to six months or longer. Consultants will include accounting managers, financial analysts, finance directors, controllers, business analysts and project management professionals.
Bonnie Koppelman will be vice president of business development. Randi Valdes will be vice president, responsible for talent acquisition.
source; http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/careers/fl-marcum-search-fort-lauderdale-20150922-story.html
The Consulting Division will place certified consultants for engagements averaging three to six months or longer. Consultants will include accounting managers, financial analysts, finance directors, controllers, business analysts and project management professionals.
Bonnie Koppelman will be vice president of business development. Randi Valdes will be vice president, responsible for talent acquisition.
source; http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/careers/fl-marcum-search-fort-lauderdale-20150922-story.html
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Best Practices For Customer Support: Consulting The Head Of Adobe Customer Service
The landscape of customer support, customer care and customer service has changed nearly overnight. Customers now expect a nearly real-time response to any concern they express via social media or on a user forums. And customer support now often depends on crowdsourced answers as much as it does on professional full-time company support.
One of the experts I’ve enjoyed discussing this with recently is Rani Mani, who is the director for customer success, social media strategy and engagement at Adobe, the graphics software company. As you can imagine, presiding over Adobe’s efforts to support their passionate user base brings issues to the fore quickly and with a lot of force. Here are four guiding principles I’ve gleaned from discussions with Ms. Mani. (Before you ask—and believe me, I did—Ms. Mani’s department was not involved in handling and fixing the Flash security flap earlier this summer, which, Ms. Mani explains to me, were addressed by corporate support rather than customer support.)
1) Curate before you create. ”At Adobe,” says Ms. Mani, “our best practice is to assume that when a ‘new’ customer question is voiced, it has likely been asked before.” Which is why Adobe invests a lot of “curation time” making sure that, rather than endlessly re-creating the wheel or some semblance thereof, they succeed in finding the roundest wheel that has been previously created, the answer that is not just correct but most complete and correct, and flag that answer for use when similar queries come up.
see more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2015/09/19/customer-support-best-practices-consulting-the-head-of-adobe-customer-service/
One of the experts I’ve enjoyed discussing this with recently is Rani Mani, who is the director for customer success, social media strategy and engagement at Adobe, the graphics software company. As you can imagine, presiding over Adobe’s efforts to support their passionate user base brings issues to the fore quickly and with a lot of force. Here are four guiding principles I’ve gleaned from discussions with Ms. Mani. (Before you ask—and believe me, I did—Ms. Mani’s department was not involved in handling and fixing the Flash security flap earlier this summer, which, Ms. Mani explains to me, were addressed by corporate support rather than customer support.)
1) Curate before you create. ”At Adobe,” says Ms. Mani, “our best practice is to assume that when a ‘new’ customer question is voiced, it has likely been asked before.” Which is why Adobe invests a lot of “curation time” making sure that, rather than endlessly re-creating the wheel or some semblance thereof, they succeed in finding the roundest wheel that has been previously created, the answer that is not just correct but most complete and correct, and flag that answer for use when similar queries come up.
see more: http://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2015/09/19/customer-support-best-practices-consulting-the-head-of-adobe-customer-service/
Wednesday, September 16, 2015
Google's answer to Microsoft Office just got a huge vote of confidence from tech consulting giant Accenture
2007 helping businesses install Google Apps just got bought by one of the 100-pound gorillas in the consulting world, Accenture.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed but we expect this was a good exit for Cloud Sherpas, which had more than 1,100 employees and had raised more than $63 million in venture investment.
Cloud Sherpas helps companies move from traditional software to cloud-only alternatives, and it made its name helping companies move from Microsoft Office to Google Apps (now called Google for Work), earning an award from Google as the best Google for Work Partner four times.
It then started helping companies implement Salesforce and ServiceNow products, earning high status as partners from both of those companies.
You might not know Accenture if you're not familiar with enterprise tech, but it's a huge and influential companies — other big companies and government agencies often hire Accenture to help set up and run their computer systems, and the company has more than 300,000 employees and earned about $3 billion on $31 billion in sales last year.
Accenture will be using Cloud Sherpas to launch a new cloud business practice called the Accenture Cloud First Applications team.
This team will help companies roll out cloud-only services including Google for Work, NetSuite, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, and so on. Companies are stampeding into the cloud these days, and these newer apps are taking the place of software from old enterprise giants like Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP — particularly at young companies.
Google sees this exit as a big validation for Google's ability to build a big ecosystem of partners to sell and support its enterprise products. That's a relatively new phenom for the search giant.
Google for Work president Amit Singh emailed us this statement about the deal:
We’ve always believed the cloud can be transformative for any business, and Accenture’s move to combine Cloud Sherpas with its substantial cloud business validates this, and shows further proof of Google’s incredible momentum in this market.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed but we expect this was a good exit for Cloud Sherpas, which had more than 1,100 employees and had raised more than $63 million in venture investment.
Cloud Sherpas helps companies move from traditional software to cloud-only alternatives, and it made its name helping companies move from Microsoft Office to Google Apps (now called Google for Work), earning an award from Google as the best Google for Work Partner four times.
It then started helping companies implement Salesforce and ServiceNow products, earning high status as partners from both of those companies.
You might not know Accenture if you're not familiar with enterprise tech, but it's a huge and influential companies — other big companies and government agencies often hire Accenture to help set up and run their computer systems, and the company has more than 300,000 employees and earned about $3 billion on $31 billion in sales last year.
Accenture will be using Cloud Sherpas to launch a new cloud business practice called the Accenture Cloud First Applications team.
This team will help companies roll out cloud-only services including Google for Work, NetSuite, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday, and so on. Companies are stampeding into the cloud these days, and these newer apps are taking the place of software from old enterprise giants like Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP — particularly at young companies.
Google sees this exit as a big validation for Google's ability to build a big ecosystem of partners to sell and support its enterprise products. That's a relatively new phenom for the search giant.
Google for Work president Amit Singh emailed us this statement about the deal:
We’ve always believed the cloud can be transformative for any business, and Accenture’s move to combine Cloud Sherpas with its substantial cloud business validates this, and shows further proof of Google’s incredible momentum in this market.
read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/google-excited-about-accenture-cloud-sherpas-acquisition-2015-9
Friday, September 11, 2015
KBC Advanced Wins 3-year $8.5 Mln Consulting Contract From Middle East Oil Firm
KBC Advanced Technologies Plc. (KBC.L), a consultancy and software provider to the hydrocarbon industry, announced Friday the award of a three-year, $8.5 million consulting contract from a major Middle Eastern client.
Under the deal, KBC would assist the client with margin improvement and workforce capability development across three refineries. The award, which was subject to competitive bidding, includes provision for a further $2.4 million of optional services.
KBC had conducted profit improvement programmes for this client in the late 1990's. The company said the latest award is in addition to its current consulting engagement in the country, which is to assess the feasibility of investing in a new petrochemical complex.
Kevin Smith, KBC's Chief Commercial Officer, said, "Despite the current uncertainty in the oil markets, many of our clients continue to invest in the downstream oil sector and we look forward to helping them extract the best value from their downstream operations."
read more: http://www.rttnews.com/2551511/kbc-advanced-wins-3-year-8-5-mln-consulting-contract-from-middle-east-oil-firm.aspx
Under the deal, KBC would assist the client with margin improvement and workforce capability development across three refineries. The award, which was subject to competitive bidding, includes provision for a further $2.4 million of optional services.
KBC had conducted profit improvement programmes for this client in the late 1990's. The company said the latest award is in addition to its current consulting engagement in the country, which is to assess the feasibility of investing in a new petrochemical complex.
Kevin Smith, KBC's Chief Commercial Officer, said, "Despite the current uncertainty in the oil markets, many of our clients continue to invest in the downstream oil sector and we look forward to helping them extract the best value from their downstream operations."
read more: http://www.rttnews.com/2551511/kbc-advanced-wins-3-year-8-5-mln-consulting-contract-from-middle-east-oil-firm.aspx
Friday, September 4, 2015
The Most Prestigious Consulting Firms In 2015
Vault.com, the career website, has released a ranking of the most prestigious consulting firms. A little like the Oscars, which turns to the movie industry to tally its votes, Vault’s list comes from a survey of consultants who are asked to rank their peers and competitors. Vault ran its survey for six weeks in March and April and gathered votes from 9,000 consultants at 65 North American firms.
Vault does a number of other consulting firm rankings (best firms for work/life balance, for benefits, for compensation) , where it gives questionnaires to people in management positions and those managers distribute the questionnaires to employees.
For the prestige ranking, consultants were not allowed to vote for their own firms, and they were asked only to rate firms with which they were familiar. They rated each firm on a scale of 1 (least prestigious) to 10. Vault has been running the survey for 14 years, and every year McKinsey has come out on top. In fact, the top four are unchanged from last year: McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Bain and Deloitte Consulting.
Fifth place shifted this year. In 2014 Booz & Company was in that slot, but in the spring of last year, accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers bought it and gave it the infelicitous name “Strategy&.” Suddenly the firm lost its name recognition, says Vault’s Phil Stott, who’s in charge of the ranking. The Booz name was confusing even before the acquisition. In 1914 Booz & Company was founded and grew into government consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton (where Edward Snowden was doing contract work for the NSA before he leaked classified data). In 2008 its corporate consulting business, Booz & Company, spun off and in 2008, the Carlyle Group acquired it. Confused yet? In fifth place this year: Booz Allen Hamilton, up from sixth last year. Strategy& sank to 19th.
Why is prestige important in the consulting business? For job seekers, having McKinsey or Boston Consulting on a résumé can open up opportunities, as The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal would on a journalist’s CV. Also people simply care about prestige. Says Stott, “For many people, their career defines them,” says Stott. “They want to work for the most prestigious firms because of that.”
The list is dominated by huge firms with workforces in the thousands and multiple worldwide offices. An exception: the Bridgespan Group, located on Boston’s Copley Place. The firm has 158 employees and its focus is the nonprofit sector. It spun off from Bain in 1999 but kept its ties to the firm. Bain consultants can take a leave and work six to 12 months at Bridgespan.
read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2015/09/03/the-most-prestigious-consulting-firms-2/
Vault does a number of other consulting firm rankings (best firms for work/life balance, for benefits, for compensation) , where it gives questionnaires to people in management positions and those managers distribute the questionnaires to employees.
For the prestige ranking, consultants were not allowed to vote for their own firms, and they were asked only to rate firms with which they were familiar. They rated each firm on a scale of 1 (least prestigious) to 10. Vault has been running the survey for 14 years, and every year McKinsey has come out on top. In fact, the top four are unchanged from last year: McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Bain and Deloitte Consulting.
Fifth place shifted this year. In 2014 Booz & Company was in that slot, but in the spring of last year, accounting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers bought it and gave it the infelicitous name “Strategy&.” Suddenly the firm lost its name recognition, says Vault’s Phil Stott, who’s in charge of the ranking. The Booz name was confusing even before the acquisition. In 1914 Booz & Company was founded and grew into government consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton (where Edward Snowden was doing contract work for the NSA before he leaked classified data). In 2008 its corporate consulting business, Booz & Company, spun off and in 2008, the Carlyle Group acquired it. Confused yet? In fifth place this year: Booz Allen Hamilton, up from sixth last year. Strategy& sank to 19th.
Why is prestige important in the consulting business? For job seekers, having McKinsey or Boston Consulting on a résumé can open up opportunities, as The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal would on a journalist’s CV. Also people simply care about prestige. Says Stott, “For many people, their career defines them,” says Stott. “They want to work for the most prestigious firms because of that.”
The list is dominated by huge firms with workforces in the thousands and multiple worldwide offices. An exception: the Bridgespan Group, located on Boston’s Copley Place. The firm has 158 employees and its focus is the nonprofit sector. It spun off from Bain in 1999 but kept its ties to the firm. Bain consultants can take a leave and work six to 12 months at Bridgespan.
read more at: http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2015/09/03/the-most-prestigious-consulting-firms-2/
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