Case Study
Management Practice CA1
Handup first week after Easter
Typed, 3-5 pages please
CA:
Case study: Brownloaf MacTaggart: control and power in a management consultancy
Background
Brownloaf MacTaggart (BM) is the engineering consulting division of Watkins International, a large international firm of chartered accountants and management consultants.
Watkins was established as a chartered accountancy practice in 1893. Following decades of moderate growth it entered the management consultancy market in 1955 primarily as a ‘spin-off’ from audit and taxation work. In the following years this diversification proved to be profitable.
What had started as a very small sideline activity has developed into a multidivisional management consultancy business employing in the UK alone some 700 people. Worldwide Watkins employs around 70 000 people through a network of firms and associate firms. The international firm has at least one office in most countries, and in the early 1990s has established new offices, particularly in Eastern Europe.
Watkins has endeavoured to grow primarily by acquisition and internal growth, but acquisition has been by far the most successful strategy, particularly in the 1980s when a software development company and BM were acquired. The firm now has five consultancy divisions in the UK covering information technology and software engineering; public sector management; financial services and treasury; leisure and retailing; and general engineering.
Brownloaf MacTaggart and Co. had started business in 1962 as a two-man partnership. Alex
MacTaggart had been a successful production engineer, who had assiduously built up a long list of good contacts while working for blue-chip engineering companies. Duncan Brownloaf had been a successful engineering company salesman selling diverse products such as hydraulic pit props and mining pump equipment. The two men combined their undoubted strengths by taking small premises in Walsall, in the
Handup first week after Easter
Typed, 3-5 pages please
CA:
Case study: Brownloaf MacTaggart: control and power in a management consultancy
Background
Brownloaf MacTaggart (BM) is the engineering consulting division of Watkins International, a large international firm of chartered accountants and management consultants.
Watkins was established as a chartered accountancy practice in 1893. Following decades of moderate growth it entered the management consultancy market in 1955 primarily as a ‘spin-off’ from audit and taxation work. In the following years this diversification proved to be profitable.
What had started as a very small sideline activity has developed into a multidivisional management consultancy business employing in the UK alone some 700 people. Worldwide Watkins employs around 70 000 people through a network of firms and associate firms. The international firm has at least one office in most countries, and in the early 1990s has established new offices, particularly in Eastern Europe.
Watkins has endeavoured to grow primarily by acquisition and internal growth, but acquisition has been by far the most successful strategy, particularly in the 1980s when a software development company and BM were acquired. The firm now has five consultancy divisions in the UK covering information technology and software engineering; public sector management; financial services and treasury; leisure and retailing; and general engineering.
Brownloaf MacTaggart and Co. had started business in 1962 as a two-man partnership. Alex
MacTaggart had been a successful production engineer, who had assiduously built up a long list of good contacts while working for blue-chip engineering companies. Duncan Brownloaf had been a successful engineering company salesman selling diverse products such as hydraulic pit props and mining pump equipment. The two men combined their undoubted strengths by taking small premises in Walsall, in the