Steinmetz Launches Strategic Consultancy Focused on Integration, Consensus Building

---

ADWEEK, February 01, 1999
By David Gianatasio


BOSTON - Add Allan Steinmetz to the growing list of management consultants looking to assist clients on a range of marketing and communications issues.

With more than 20 years of experience as an agency and client executive, Steinmetz has formed Inward Strate-gic Consulting in Cambridge, Mass.

The six-person startup takes a highly focused, analytical approach to helping companies plan and execute their internal and external communications and advertising programs.

"I'm a change-management and mar-keting consultant who focuses on [building] internal consensus," said Steinmetz, who most recently served as senior vice presi-dent and director of marketing and com-munications at man-agement consulting firm Arthur D. Little, also in Cambridge.

Inward Strategic Consulting is working with a half-dozen Fortune 500 companies-which Steinmetz would not disclose-on how they position themselves to their own employees and in the marketplace.

The company also will recruit mar-keting executives and brand managers and, if necessary; evaluate advertising, direct marketing and public relations programs and conduct agency search-es. Steinmetz is now gearing up for a review for one client and another will likely follow, he said.

Steinmetz's unique selling point is his ability to bridge the gap between consulting firms and ad agencies, offer-ing both strategic insight and ways to execute ideas, he said.

"He is really good at putting togeth-er packages and articulating ideas," said Chris Colbert, president of Hol-land Mark Martin Edmund in Boston. The agency has worked with Stein-metz for most of his four-year tenure at Arthur D. Little, which he continues- to serve on a consulting basis.

Colbert called Steinmetz's inward focus "a big idea" that is often overlooked by agencies and traditional consulting firms. "Integration is as much about getting employees lined up as [it is about getting customers lined up," he said.

Dr. Michael Hammer, an author and pioneer in the field of corporate re-engineering, said applying an inward focus to external marketing may become increasingly preva-lent. He cited Ford Motor Co.'s "Quality is job 1" campaign as an example of an internal initiative that spawned full-blown advertising.

Meridian Technol-ogy Marketing vice president Gretchen Dock advised Steinmetz to hire staff with client-side expe-rience. Many of the 25 or so staffers at Boston-based Meridian-which will likely compete with Inward Strategic Consult-ing-are professionals who have been in the midst of mergers, acquisitions and other corporate upheavals. This "real world" experience gives them credibility with clients, she said.

Steinmetz believes his approach can be taught and licensed and can perhaps help agencies come up to scratch in strategic consulting, he said. But first, he is looking to gain credibility by building a track record of success in an increasingly compet-itive field.

Agencies are starting to embrace strategic consulting as a profit cen-ter. Young & Rubicam, where Stein-metz worked for ten years, last year bought Capital Consulting & Research and Mead Point Group. In addition, WPP Group has purchased consultancies and established a unit dedi-cated to the business.