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August 21, 2008

The world is your oyster

I have riffed here a lot about the "Permanent Opportunity" that consultants have in the world today, as well as how when you reach a critical mass - finding work is not a problem - working out which work to accept is the problem.

Even so... here are some tips on industries I am familiar with around the world that might present some additional opportunities.

Petrochemical Industries around the globe are suffering from the weight of higher oil prices. (Their raw product) they are also facing rampant competition from countries that do not have that competitive barrier, and from countries that use low cost labor to manage their physical assets.

These industries are in desperate need of any assistance to become more effective and efficient. Today!

Old Media is struggling to retain their relevance as new media steals their readership. Advertising revenues have gone into reverse, each facility is now resource strapped, and journalists are pursuing freelance and independant options.

Can you help the newspaper industry to find its way into the modern era of communications?

Infrastructure in the USA has been reeling since the very public collapse of the Mississippi River Bridge.years of neglect, years of underspending and no real idea of the size of the problem.

Capital planning, asset condition surveys, spending profile analysis, and financial optimization of the serviceability versus cost arguments are big winners here.

Oil and Gas are trying to recover from the Baker report. A report led by James Baker into safety in teh wake of the BP refinery disaster in Houston.

Know anything about safety? How to implement it and how to manage it successfully/ Gigantic opportunitiues here.


Manufacturing in the Western Hemisphere is struggling to compete with the low wage regimes of China in particular. Quality is a winner, as is cost reduction, marketing and promotion of national pride to a degree. Any ideas for these guys?


Health Care - cost , service, incident prevention... you name it. Big chances here.

There is no end of opportunities for consultants with an eye for a problem, and a mind for resolving it rapidly.

The West has a few advantages that you need to be thinking of when you put any solutions to majors like these who will be fighting battles in a hundred different battlegrounds simultaneously.
  1. We have women! Smart, educated, active and participating. Innovative leaders that competing nations do not have!
  2. We have the smarts to come up with new technology. SaaS was a US creation, SAP a German one - competitors are generally copying these things. So put it to use. For example, how much could your clients save by transferring their (say) call centers to one central US location and managing them via software ont he web?
  3. We have legal systems that work. Put this into use, tie things down with patents, uncopiable trademarks and branding tools. And when that doesnt work then use the functioning legal system to protect your clients space as vigorously as you can.
  4. We have a culture where people are basically not out to get one over you. This is the fundamental advantage of western business approaches. Rough and tumble - yes. Taking advantage where it is found? Of course. But dishonest? Not generally, and never for too long before the functioning legal system catches up with them.
Good luck to you in pursuing the work that dreams are made of. The world is filled with opportunities, you just need the drive, pluck and determination to go and pull them out of the sky.

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