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Fundamentals of management in the consulting profession

Box 27.3 Hunters and farmers

Approaches to entrepreneurship and management in the consulting business can be demonstrated by differentiating between “hunter” and “farmer” firms.

Hunter firms attempt to maximize the entrepreneurial spirit of their members by giving them maximum individual autonomy. They encourage each individual, and each small group, to respond and adapt to the local market. Marketing is a matter of individual responsibility. Firm-wide consistency (in services, markets and approach) is sacrificed in order to capture the benefits of local market opportunities.

To succeed, hunter firms must attract, motivate and reward the best entrepreneurs. Individuals rise and fall according to the results of their own entrepreneurial efforts. There is no central strategy and the focus is short term.

Entrepreneurialism, flexibility, responsiveness, and fast adaptation to shifting market needs are powerful business virtues. Any firm that can successfully maximize these will be a formidable competitor.

Farmer firms (also called “one-firm” firms) are built on a collaborative approach to professional practice and emphasize business systems such as compensation, hiring, training, organization and choice of service lines. They build their success by investing heavily in the chosen areas. What counts is not individual performance, but contribution to aggregate success. There is no way for an individual to do well unless the organization as a whole succeeds.

Farmer firms enter new markets (after thorough preparation) in a big way or not at all. Their marketing, which is approached as an organized, team-based activity, is well focused. Entrepreneurship is not a matter of individual drive and initiative, but a function of the whole firm’s management.

Firms that attempt to capture the benefits of both approaches (individual entrepreneurship and collaborative strategy) must make significant compromises in management practice, which usually results in reduced performance.

Source: D. Maister: “Hunters and farmers”, Ch. 28 of Managing the professional service firm (New York, The Free Press, 1993).

Aconsulting business needs entrepreneurial thinking and behaviour even when it becomes a large partnership or company employing a number of consultants. It must not turn into a bureaucracy or an academic institution. It probably needs an entrepreneurial spirit more than growing businesses in some other sectors, because of the rapidly changing needs of clients, growing competition, and the fact that consultants encounter new opportunities virtually every day. However, opportunities exist only for those who can see and are keen to take them.

It is essential to clarify the entrepreneurial role of consultants, in addition to their specific technical and managerial roles. Consultants will think and behave as entrepreneurs if they know that such behaviour is wanted and valued by the

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