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with Microsoft's Windows 95.Amoother things, Windows 95 is needto support an integtated suiteinternally developed applicatiocalled Audit System 2, now usedDeloitte & Touche's 7,000-plusautors in the United States.The suautomates much of the auditiaprocess, dramatically reducing tpaperwork involved.Next for Deloitte & Touche's 24person IS department in NashvilTenn., is deployment of SAP Rclient-server applications. The soware could be used to combine Dloitte & Touche's internal operatioespecially n the area of consultiservices,according to Greenleaf.Other technology projects at Dloitte & Touche include slashing tnumber of servers deployed in t

United Statesalmost half, fto550 to 300. Thatcludes phasing oNovell NetWaand IBM OS/2seers and replacinthem with Widows NT systemThe firm alsoadding about 5employees pmonth to its iternational LotNotes network.Coopers & Lbrand is in the pcessof buildingintranet to supPCoopers& LybraIntellectual Capi(CLIC), n initiativto cleliver up-the-minute indu

Thlnklng headI M A G I N E A S H A R P E N E D P E N C I LI in front of you. The point repre-I sents companies leading the wayinto the information age, whereintellectual assets count for morethan the ability to make and sellproducts. The eraser symbolizes theindustrial past. \tVhile most compa-nies belong somewhere along thepencil's shaft, the professional ser-vices sector is at its very tip.That's the analogy used by EllenIhapp, vice chairman and chiefknowledge officer at New York ac-counting firm Coopers & Lybrand, todescribe where professional servicescompanies stand in an increasinglyservices-driven economy. "It's theonly pure play in the knowledgeeconomy," Ihapp says. "All of ourassetsare knowledge assets."

SaysAllen Frank, chieftechnologyofifi.cer t IGMG Peat Marwick in NewYork and partner in charge of IGMG'senabling technologiespractice,"We'rebasicaily a giant brain. For us, theknowledge-management environmentis the core systemto achieve compet-itive advantage."That thinldng explains why theInformationWeek 00 professional ser-vices companies-a diverse groupdominated by Big Six accountingfums such as Coopers & Lybrand,IGMG, and Deloitte & Touche-areoften among the early adopters ofnew technology. Windows 95, LotusNotes-intranet integration, and SAPAG's R/3 enterprise applications are afew of the things on their 1996 agen-das. "We've got to larow the technol-ogy before our clients do," says DougGreenleaf,CIO of Deioitte & Touche.The IT budgets of many profession-al sewices companies will grow sub-

stantially this year compared with1995.The increases ange from 3% atCoopers & Lybrand to a whopping50%at KPMG,whidr spent $95 millionon IT in the United States n 1995.Frank says the higher level ofspending at KPMG will continue forat least three or four years, as theorganization prepares for the 21stcentury. The goal is a knowledgemanagement environment tfiat tiestogether legary systems, an intranet,the World Wide Web, data ware-housing, document management,new applications, networking, andnetwork management.All this is meant to give IGMGprofessionals ubiquitous access othe firm's brain trust. "You can nolonger separate our technologystrategy from our business strategy,"Frank says.The pace ofinnovation is simi-lar at other profes-sional servicescom-panies.Technologtrrmanagers at theseorganizations aredeploying new soft-ware, developingintranets, puttingsystems in place tosupport Internetservice offerings,and extending en-terprise networksto suPPort remoteusers and interna-tional sites.For instance,Deloitte & Touchehas upgraded all ofit s 16,000 PCs inthe United States

I Prolessionaleruiccsc0mpanles18 llenamongheearly d0ptersofnewlechnology.

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try information to its professionalstaffworldwide. The accounting irmalso s convertingphysical ibrariesin 120 U.S. ocations o v irtual li-braries, called Cyber$bs,on its intra-net. Earlier his year,Coopers& Ly-brand launched ts three-year-old axNewsNetwork ffNN on the Internet."CLICand Cyberlybare internal-ly focused," happ says. Theyexistto assistour partnersand staff.TNNis one of the first examplesof creat-ing an electronic community be-tween Coopers& Lybrandand ou rclientbase."Coopers& Lybrand s ready o offlereven more servicesover the Internetas the market develops.t has trade-marked the Cyber$b term and regis-tered he grberlyb.comdomain name."We have he option to take this con-cept and create subscription-basedlibrary services elated o highly pro-fessional echnical data," (napp says.Deloitte & Touchealso has estab-lished an Internet presence y sellingtax advice and other financial ser-viceson the Microsoft Netr,vork.Cyber hancesOther professionalservices om-panies, propelled by the nature oftheir business, lsoare cashing n oncyber opportunities. JamesScielzo,senior VP and chief technologyoffi-cer at advertising and public rela-tions specialistYoung& Rubicam nc.in NewYork,estimates hat one-thirdto one-half of the firm's 12,000employeesare involved in the cre-ativeprocessor production of com-mercialcommunications.Multiple lines of businessat Young& Rubicamare everaging hoseslcillsto help customerscreateWeb sites."It's a significantand strategicbusi-ness or us," Scielzo ays.

Young& Rubicam s wired for mul-timedia. Nearly35%of the company'sdesktopcomputers are Apple Macin-toshes the other 65%are MicrosoftWindows-based Cs),and by year'send, all employees will have Webbrowsers. he um uses ideoserversalong with its 3,500-user otesnet-work, and is building links betweenthat network and an intranet. Itsworldwide frame relay network in-creasingly arriesgraphics, ideo,and

sound i]es.The most sig-nificant problemScielzo oresees sgetting the net-work capacity tosupport all thattraffic. "The hard-ware and softwareexist to do whatwe want to do." hesays. The biggestchallenge or thefuture for us isgoing to be band-width. The costreally needs todrop more quicldythan it has."

Ernst & Youngis facing the sameproblem. "Traffichas gone up dra-matically, by a fac-tor of 10, in thelast couple ofyears,"says E. Al-len Hershey, na-tional director oftechnology nnova-tion.The NewYorkBig Six accountingfirm is solving thebandwidth dilem-ma by buildinga 45-Mbps back-bone using asyn-chronous ransfermode (ATM) ser-vices rom Sprint.Professionalservices compa-nies also are con-tinually pouringmore computerand communica-

"0urassetsre nowledgessets,"saysCoopersLybrand'snaPP.

computing as away to dramati-cally cut the costof expensiveof-fice space. Thefirm has begunsettingup metro-politanoffices or"hoteling,"whereequipment andworkspace ateassignedon anas-needed asis."We believe wewill be able toput $40 millionbackon the bot-tom line on arecurring basisas these initia-tives mature."Ituappsays.The infra-strucnrre em-ployed by Ernst& Young, whichindudes the Af,N,Inetwork, is setup to accom-modatenomadicgroupsofprofes-sionals that set-tle in at clientsites for days-orye:rrs.Hersheysays the biggestchallenge s sup-porring teams of50 or more con-sultants involvedin a major re-engineeringproj-ect. "We havethe biggest eamsfor the long-est times at thetions resources nto overseas oca- strangest laces," e notes.

tions. For many of these organiza- The accounting firm is experi-tions, more than half their work force menting with wireless echnology oris locatedoutside he United States. auditors, who often find themselvesThen there are the growing ranks working in out-of-the-way onferenceof mobile workers. At Deloitte & rooms at client sites."Theyhave oTouche,8Oo/of employeesare now go piaceswhere there may not beequipped with Pentium notebooks much of a local nfrastructure,"Her-running Windows95. "We'rea port- shey says. Wireless ends to be ofable, mobile company,"saysGreen- interest o thosepeople."leaf. "Youdon't make money sitting JayPursell,director of computerin the office." servicesat manufacturing and ser-Coopers& Lybrand sees mobile vices conglomerate the Marmon

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Professional Servicesgoals.At I(PMG,heo-rists are pushingtheideaof "thought opti-mization." Frank de-scribes t as a way ofproblem-solving inwhich there is lessemphasis n'ScientiFic method" as a wayof reaching a goal."We think there's aphysical imitation asto how far you cantake that," he says.The better approach,he says, s hypothesis-driven: "You ocus onthe problem as early in the process come from innovative thinking andaspossible.Youwant to get to the big knowledgemanagement, eavespro-answersearly." fessionalservices ompanies eeling

IGMG's philosophy has an IT re- that they are sitting pretry'.quirement-the organization'swork- "There'sa realtrend away rom theers and information resourceshave focuson downsizing, ost-cutting, ndto be seamlessly etworked. That ex- business rocesseengineering, nd aplainswhy the firm's directors decid- gxeatdealmore focus on innovation,"ed to increase T spendingby 50% Coopers Lybrand's(nappsays. It'sthis year."The systemaligns tself to an enornous opporfunity for profes-the thinking process,"Frank says. sionalservices irms." -Johnfuley

I This kind of lead-' :,,,:.r,,'r,:.,;r ."' t i lff"ttff"Hffil,' ; rl , comPanies PtimisticExpandingotusotesetworksir'"""T.#:, rffi"ff:and ntesratinsotes ith ;;;#";"";i n i*-new ntranets orementors to fuelOfferingervicesver growth, especiallythe nternet [hrough their alreadyUpgradingupportormobile nd fast-growingechnol'remote sers ogy consulting prac-providinganyrime,nywhere tig9,sThat combinedaccesstoorporatettorfues ]"tl o growing real-r lxtiT"f;:i:f:in the future will

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Group Inc. in Chicago, says thegroup's60-plus ompanies re arge-ly autonomouswhen it comes o theuse of IT.The companies ncludeGetzBros.exporters, he TransUnion cred-it agency,and Marmon/I(eystone,distributor of alloy tubing.Half of the group's $6.1billion in1995 evenuecame rom sewicesandhalf from manufacturing, whichexplains ts heavy nvestment n engi-neering and computer-aided esignsystems.On the flip side, ewer hanhalf the group's 28,000employeeshave heir own PCs.One thing the Marmon Groupcompanies have in common is adesire o establisha presence n theInternet. Half have Internet connec-tions, and one-third have Web sites."There'sa pretty big audienceoutthere on the Internet, and all of themare potential customers," Pursellsays.The group's total IT spendingfor 1996 is $rgs million, a slightincreaseover ast year.Other professionalservices om-paniesare pursuing even oftier ITr l l l l l t r t l l r l l l t l l t l l l l t l l l r l l l r l

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f8 8 ' IW ' SEPT. , 1996 + http:l lwww.informationweek.com