APR|L 15, 1998 VOL. 2 NO.

8
W I N N I N G S I R A T E G I E SF O R
T H E I N T E G R A T I O NC O M M U N I T Y

l f A n s w e r T h i niks

braIn
o
i n d e e da " g i a n t

ower
brain,"as CTO

A [ l a nF r a n k

d e s c r i b e si t , t h e n

F r a n ks i t s s q u a r e t y
in the frontal

l o b e .H e b e t i e v e s
h e i s b u i t d i n gt h e

lT-services
firm of
tomorrow,

t h r o u g ht h e

m e t h o d o l o g yo f
thought-process

o p e r a t o r sa n d a
m a r k e tv i s i o no f

the "extended

e n t e r p r i s e .S" e e

whatyou think.

BY CURTISF.
FRANKLINJR.
 EDITOR'S NOTE:
o talk with Allan Frank, chief techni-
cal officer ofAnswerThink Consult-
ing Group, is to let a torrent of ideas
sweepyou along. The thoughts come fast and
furiously, with concepts from mathematics,
information theory, businessstrategy,and pop
culture all colliding and blending to build
imagesof thoughts and theones.
In early 1997 Nlan Frank, Ted Fernandez,
and Ulysses Knotts, three of the most influen-
tial partners in KPMG Peat Marwick, walked
out on the same day. The company they
formed, AnswerThink Consulting Group, is
now plowing some of tle same professional-
servicesfields as their alma mater-but with an
approachthat is unique to the younger fum.
Senior Editor Curtis Franklin recendy sat
down with Allan Frank to discussthe struc-
tures that make AnswerThink a model for
the IT-services companies of tomorrow, and
what the three founders hope to achievewith
their creation.
Sotutions{ntegrator:
Youmentionedbeingexcited
about forminga companywith a particularvision.
What makesthis so exciting?
AilanFrank:There are so many dimensionsto
the excitcment. Having been in consulting
since the 1970s, I now have the opportunity
to create something. It's almost like a crys-
talline structure: If it has the proper symme-
try to it, that crystal will grow with that
symmetry. Similarly, if you build a flawed,
asymmetricalstructure, the degree of error
gets worse and worse. In a larger organiza-
tion so much energy gets applied to organi-
zational inertia, whether it's politics or just
dealing with the issuesof the day.
We're effectively a giant brain. We offer
the combined intellectual capital, experi-
ence, and knowledge of the people in
AnswerThink, either from the basic skills
and competencies that they bring to the
table or from having done problem-solving
for similar clients in the past. We wanted to
create an intellectual framework that provid-
ed us with some consistency around
"extended enterprise."
We have a clear vision of our competitive
advantage-a world-view of where our
clients sit. That world-view is centered on
the notion of the extended enterprise.The
industrial business model is dead. The
receivable of one company is the payable of
the other, and whether you use phrases like
((integrated
"supply chain," business," or
wlrr'.solutiontittegretor.c0m april 15, 1998 solutions inregrator
AnswerThink
Consutting
Group
Miami,FL
(30s)37s-800s
www.answerthink.com
Founded:April1997
Employees:401
Keyexecutives:TedFernandez, CEO;AtlanFrank,
CTO;
UlyssesKnotts,executiveVf salesandmarketing
Key vendor partners: Aurum Software,Oracle,
PeopleSoft,SunMicrosystems
Corecompetencies:Process improvement,project
manaSement, lT strategy,
technologyarchitecture
andintetration,networkdesign, applicationdevel-
opment,database implementation
Biggestmanatement challenge:To grow as an
integratororganizedalonS strateSichorizontat,
ratherthanvertical,competencies
something else, our clients are much like a
web ofinterrelated value chains.
The extended-enterprisemodel provides
a ger.reric paradigm for how we help our
clients deal with these new problems.
ls this oystalline structurereflectedin the organi-
zationalstructure of what you'rebuilding,or are
you following a moretnditional model but with a
different intellectualoverlay?
That's why I said it is so exciting-it's multi-
dimensional. Even the intellectual overlay has
multiple dimensions. Competitive advantage
in today's world has to come from under-
standing that the experienceof working with
us provides profoundly different outcomes
for our clients. Our only lasting competitive
advantage comes liom how we think and
integrate knowledge. So the other part of
AnslyerThink is this notion of how we think
about a problem, how we kind of fold around
a solution, and then how we execute.
Very early on we invested a significant
amount of money in a technology infrastruc-
ture. The Big Six were always early adopters
of Lotus Notes and similar kinds of things,
and it made a lot of sense.But if you read all
the industry rags about knowledge manage-
ment, you will hear that the one big impedi-
ment is culture-the behavior of people and
the desire to share.
If the entire intellectual capital of the expe-
rience of the individuals in AnswerThink can
be focused on every problem, that's powerfiil.
So the other key differentiator is what we
would call a knowledge-enabled delivery
process.Even our compensation model-our
reward system-was right from day one:
based on contributions to the
knowledgebase and that kind of
thing.
It soundslike a keything you hadto
do wascastoff traditional notions
of corporate turf-building within
AnswerThink.
The value propositions for us in
solutions is to provide more
value through more experience.
You want repeatability. If I've
dorre something five times
befbre, and I can bring to the
table experience of how I've
done it well and not well, that's
a solid value proposition.
N{ost integrators focus on
*'hirt clients do at the physical
laver. Their svstemslook at the
functions and then lsk how systemsenhance
them. That set of intellectual Lego blocks
has nothing to do u'itl.r people; it has to do
with what people do-functions.
I'll give you an examplein BPR [business
process re-enginecringl. The first year,
everybody played rvith tl.ris from the big,
high-impact side-hou'can we make more
money, rightf Let's cnhrnce the revenue-
generatingprocess.So th$'$,ent around and
said, "Let's give even'body a laptop."
Somehow. then. sales-fbrceautomation
was born out of this rvhole notion. And what
did it really dol Contact management.Yes,
they could log in and look at inventory sta-
tus quicker. Yes, they could maybe pull down
some data. But the last time I checked, these
have nothing to do with closing a sale.
Closing a sale is all about knowing your
customer, understandir-rg the customer's
business,and being able to articulate how the
product or service can add value. What's real-
ly going on is much more inside his head. If
I could press a button and have the system
give me the answersto the questions inside
my master salesman'shead, then I could take
him under my arm and that would help me
close the sale.So we've created this thought-
processlayer.
We've created a set of generic thought-
process operators for ourselvesto allow us to
work on this level. Once I write them down
in litde pictures, I can say "That's what it
looks like! Boy, that's ugly." Then I can apply
operatorsof refinement on it.
Well, how do you optimize thought
Drocessif vou don't write it down! So we
 EDITOR'S NOTE:
o talk with Allan Frank, chief techni-
cal officer ofAnswerThink Consult-
ing Group, is to let a torrent of ideas
sweepyou along. The thoughts come fast and
furiously with concepts from mathematics,
information theory, businessstrategy,and pop
culture all colliding and blending to build
imagesof thoughts and theones.
In early 1997 Nlan Frank, Ted Fernandez,
and Ulysses Knotts, three of the most influen-
tial partners in KPMG Peat Marwick, walked
out on the same day. The company they
formed, AnswerThink Consulting Group, is
now plowing some of the same professional-
servicesfields as their alma mater-but with an
approachthat is unique to the younger fum.
Senior Editor Curtis Franklin recendy sat
down with Allan Frank to discussthe struc-
tures that make AnswerThink a model for
the IT-services companies of tomorrow, and
what the three founders hope to achievewith
their creation.
Solutions{ntegrator:
Youmentionedbeingexcited
about forminga companywith a particularvision.
What makesthis so exciting?
AtlanFrank:There are so many dimensionsto
the excitement. Having been in consulting
since the 1970s, I now have the opportunity
to create something. It's almost like a crys-
talline structure: If it has the proper symme-
try to it, that crystal will grow with that
symmetry. Similarly, if you build a flawed,
asymmetricalstructure, the degree of error
gets worse and worse. In a larger organiza-
tion so much energy gets applied to organi-
zational inertia, whether it's politics or just
dealing with the issuesof the day.
We're effectively a giant brain. We offer
the combined intellectual capital, experi-
ence, and knowledge of the people in
AnswerThink, either from the basic skills
and competencies that they bring to the
table or from having done problem-solving
for similar clients in the past. We wanted to
create an intellectual framework that provid-
ed us with some consistency around
"extended enterprise."
We have a clear vision of our competitive
advantage-a world-view of where our
clients sit. That world-view is centered on
the notion of the extended enterprise.The
industrial business model is dead. The
receivable of one company is the payable of
the other, and whether you use phrases like
((integrated
"supply chain," business," or
wlrtr.solationtittegtetor.com april 15, 1998
AnswerThink
Consutting
Group
Miami,FL
(30s)37s-800s
www.answerthink.com
Founded:Aprit1997
Employees:401
Keyexecutives:TedFernandez, CEO;AttanFrank,
CTO;
UlyssesKnotts,executiveVBsalesandmarketinS
Key vendor partners: Aurum Software,Oracle,
PeopteSoft,SunMicrosystems
Corecompetencies:Process improvement,project
manaSement, lT strategy,
technologyarchitecture
andintetration,networkdesign,applicationdeve[-
opment,database implementation
Biggestmanatement challenge:To grow as an
inteSratororganizedalong strategichorizontat,
ratherthanvertical,competencies
something else, our clients are much like a
web ofinterrelated value chains.
The extended-enterprisemodel provides
a ger.reric paradigm for how we help our
clients deal with these new problems.
ls this cystalline structurereflectedin the organi-
zationalstructureof what you'rebuilding,or are
you following a moretnditional model but with a
different intellectualoverlay?
That's why I said it is so exciting-it's multi-
dimensional. Even the intellectual overlay has
multiple dimensions. Competitive advantage
in today's world has to come from under-
standing that the experienceof working with
us provides profoundly different outcomes
for our clients. Our only lasting competitive
advantage comes fiom how we think and
integrate knowledge. So the other part of
AnslyerThink is this notion of how we think
about a problem, how we kind of fold around
a solution, and then how we execute.
Very early on we invested a significant
amount of money in a technology infrastruc-
ture. The Big Six were always early adopters
of Lotus Notes and similar kinds of things,
and it made a lot of sense.But if you read all
the industry rags about knowledge manage-
ment, you will hear that the one big impedi-
ment is culture-the behavior of people and
the desire to share.
If the entire intellectual capital of the expe-
rience of the individuals in AnswerThink can
be focused on every problem, that's powerfiJ.
So the other key differentiator is what we
would call a knowledge-enabled delivery
process.Even our compensation model--our
reward system-was right from day one:
solutions inregrator
based on contributions to the
knowledgebase and that kind of
thing.
It soundslike a keything you hadto
do wascastoff traditional notions
of corporate turf-building within
AnswerThink.
The value propositions for us in
solutions is to provide more
value through more experience.
You want repeatability. If I've
dorre something five times
before, and I can bring to the
table experience of how I've
done it well and not well, that's
a solid value proposition.
Most integrators focus on
*'hirt clients do at the physical
laver. Their systems look at the
functions and then ask l-rowsystemsenhance
them. That set of intellectual lrgo blocks
has nothing to do t'itl.r people; it has to do
with what people do-functions.
I'll give you an examplein BPR [business
process re-enginecring]. The first year,
everybody played u'ith this from the big,
high-impact side-hou'can we make more
money, rightf Let's enhrrnce the revenue-
generating process.So theY $,ent around and
said, "Let's give everybody a laptop."
Somehow. then. sales-fbrceautomation
was born out of this rvhole notion. And what
did it really dof Contact management.Yes,
they could log in and look at inventory sta-
tus quicker. Yes, they could maybe pull down
some data. But the last time I checked, these
have nothing to do with closing a sale.
Closing a sale is all about knowing your
customer, understanding the customer's
business,and being able to articulate how the
product or service can add value. What's real-
ly going on is much more inside his head. If
I could press a button and have the system
give me the answersto the questions inside
my master salesman'shead, then I could take
him under my arm and that would help me
close the sale.So we've created this thought-
processlayer.
We've created a set of generic thought-
process operators for ourselvesto allow us to
work on this level. Once I write them down
in litde pictures, I can say, "That's what it
Iooks like! Boy, that's ugly." Then I can apply
operatorsof refinement on it.
Well, how do you optimize thought
Drocessif vou don't write it down! So we
ffirgemjll --r
si exclusive
create thought operators) and the thought
o p e r a t o r s l i n k t o b u s i n e s s p r o c e s s . more than 350 strong.It's very importantto completemind-meld.We'vebeenvery carefi:l
K n o w l e d g e -m a n a g e m e n t e n v i r o n m e n t s institutionalize.When we booted up, we did in combiningwith groupsthat get it.
deliver intellectual contact-hopefully, just
in time-anlnvhere , anytime, in anticipation tion job. It's very interestingwhenyou starta the message
of the thought process. Because,again, it
gets back to information.
It soundslike you areusingAnswerThink asthe lab
to a trcat extent.
Yes! You got it! Our thought processdivides
into four pieces: targeting, architecture, con-
struction, and migration. I don't careifyou're
building a s\rstemor solving a problem. I love
when consulting firms, particularly small ones,
say, "We don't have a methodology." Srhat
you have then is just a bunch of people-
you're selling bodies. The targeting phaseis all
about getting your arms around the problem
space.
fuchitecture is not only targeting the right
problem; the architecture phaseis the two-hun-
dred-thousand-foot view-"[rt's now architect
the solution and its components." Construction
is getting it down, desigrring it, and building it.
Migation is propagating it. All products that we
develop come from this base. When you talk
about a knorvledgebase,the interesting thing is
that there's a relationship between the size of
the knowledgebaseand how hard it is to get the
information out. The Web is a perfect example.
When do you need the knowledge asa con-
sultantf You need it while you build value for
your client. So the methodology framework
provides the scaffolding for how to organize
the knowledge. We grve everybody a laptop
with CD-ROMs and a big, fat hard drive-we
just have one central knowledgebasethat sits
on the Web. And so what happensis that, as a
byproduct of what you do, you're contributing
knowledge to the knowledgebase.It's auto-
matically indexed and all that other stuff.
We created a generic set of levels, regard-
less of who you are. By the wa5 100 percent
of the people in AnswerThink-regardless of
level-are owners) unlike most institutions
with three founders, where they keep all the
stock. For every acquisition that we make,
even if we bought a small company owned by
one person, we insist that the owner give
away stock to every single employee regard-
lessof level. Now, obviously, different contri-
butions warrant different stock amounts and
so forth.
Copyright a 1998by IDG Channel ServicesGroup, an lnternotional Data Group Publication.
Reprinted from Solutions Intetrator, 111
SpeenStreet, Framingham,MA 01701.Reprinted by Reprint Management Services,(717)560-2001l.
We startedsmall.Now, aswe speak,we're grokking, if you will, of our model waslike a
this just like we would do a largetransforma- You haveto be smartenoughto package
in different waysand alsoto rec-
business without anybusiness to startwith. We ognize that any organizationis madeup of all
appliedthat time very wisely andwe broke up kinds of people-left brain, right brain, up,
the companyinto processes. We usedone of down, and the things that they do are differ-
our senior transformationleadersto help us ent. The vastmajorityof peoplethat we have
through. So we reallytried to do this right. are experienced people.The essenceof the
lVhen I talk business is reallytargetingthoseexperienced
about measuring people.Their jobs tend to be much more in
what's in the the problem-solving space.
knowledgebase,
we measure rwo Whan yorcloseyoureyaandprcjectout,
wheredoyor
going?
things. We mea- seeAnswerThink DoyouseeAnswerThink asan
s u r e c o n t r i b u - 80dX)-personorganizationdownthercad?
lsthatone
tions,but anybody of thedrcams thatyouhavefor it?
can pur a nugger Well, you know, I swted by sayingthat we
of worthless stuff wantedto redefneconsultingandvaluepropo-
sition. Is there an
Our only lastingcompetitive endgamef I'm not
sure I seethis asan
advantatecomesfrom how we endgame. Maybe
the best way to
think and integrateknowledge. answer it is Ted
Fernandez, Ulysses
ALLAN FRANK, ANSWERTHINK Knotts, and I-
three of us-are the original founders. We
in. Wealsomeasure usage.Avery simplemea- made a life decision, and that life decision came
surementis how manypeopleacruallytouch out of a personal, profound set of common
it, you know, and pull it down. questions that we were asking ourselves.
There was nothing fundamentally wrong
Obviously,whenyouwerefint startingthefirm,therc with KPMG. But we were sitting around and
werepople who,through theirexperience,'totit'' saying,"What do we want from the businessf"
whenthis modelwasbeingdeveloped. Nowthat The institution that we came from and that
you'regrcwing, howmuchof it ishiringpeoplewho whole ilk aroseout of organizationsthat were
already"haveit'' andhowmuchof it istraining? built over 100 yean ago. And, yes, drey came
I don't know that I cangiveyou a percentage from a different world.
answer.kt me try to answerfrom a coupleof We saidto ourselvesthat we wanted to create
angles.First of all, today AnsweiThink has a legacy.A hundred years from now it may be
more peoplewho didn't sta:.tfrom the begin- something different, but where we came from,
ning thanthosewho did. So,evenifthere were I'm not sure the original founden foresaw the
a small kernel of people who had a similar future or eventhe notion of consulting and what
thought process,our merger-and-acquisitionit would be like. They saw themselvesasbusines
strategyhasbeenone where an essentialfilter advison to a world that was moving from an old
is basically
to seekpeoplewho already"get it." industial model to a new industrial model.
Take, for instance,the Hackett Group I'd rather not get into the discussionof how
acquisition.Greg Hackett and his group are big, in terms of quoting numbers and so forth. I
the leadingtransformationconsultans in the guess I would rather leave the answer the way
finance and human-resources procurement that I started. In redefining consulting, we want-
space.Peoplehavebeen trying to get Greg ed to find our greamess.Obviously, it will turn
Hackettfor years,but he choseus. He's tie into numbers and things like that, but the great-
leader in the field. And it's becausethis nesscomesfrom somethineelse. O