News round-up: Deloitte, Geraldo, IBM

Welcome to the first news round-up for this, the only week of mid-March 2011 that will ever be. Never again will any mid-March week be populated by such splendid consulting news. Sure, the Raj Raj trial/McKinsey debacle threatens to extend through March 2012, but that isn't splendid—it's just sad.

Here's a bit of Monday absurdity for you: Deloitte made headlines in Canada today when it was announced that the firm would investigate alleged abuses at a mental hospital in Nova Scotia. Yep, you read that right. Deloitte has taken up right where Geraldo Rivera left off (or, at least where his career did)—medical malpractice for the mentally ill! It turns out that the government of Nova Scotia decided that a public sector investigation just wouldn’t do; instead, they selected Deloitte to "help the government understand" how abuses could have possibly happened under their watch, via an "independent" private sector review. The facility in question is Braemore Home in Sydney, Canada, home to victims of mental illness like a 20 year old autistic man who was recently kept in a constantly-lit room for more than two weeks. Under government (read: Mounties) supervision, Deloitte consultants will examine the causes of the abuses and recommend ways in which they can be avoided in the future. The firm's findings will be reported to the Nova Scotia government sometime this spring. If it is anywhere near as compelling as Geraldo's brilliantly-mustached exposure of the Willowbrook State School, I will eat my shoe.

IBM today unveiled a new consulting unit and software package to provide clients the opportunity to engage in Smarter Commerce. The Smarter Commerce consulting practice will compliment new cloud computing and business analytics software to give customers "new ways to buy, sell and secure greater customer loyalty in the era of mobile and social networks." I don't quite know what that means so for an explanation, see this surprisingly decent video from the IBM vault. The firm says that Smarter Commerce rose out of the need to address "rising customer demands in today's digitally transformed marketplace," which sounds a lot like Capgemini's Digital Transformation push. Translation: Every tech consultancy/SaaS provider will soon realize that, if they haven't already, they need to come out with a brand new consulting unit based on "new technology" and "digital and social media" pronto.

Also: Slalom Consulting's Portland office nabbed second spot on Oregon Business Magazine's best offices to work at ranking, and transportation consultancy Wilbur Smith was acquired by logistics experts CDM.

For more information:
Winnipeg Free Press
IBM Launches Software and Consulting Services
Oregon Business Magazine Ranks Slalom Consulting's Portland Office 2nd Best
Charleston Post and Courier