The "End" of Transactional Executive Search ?

Fernando Delgado made in a recent article various comments about how the end of Executive Search in its current form could be near. While I do not agree with all arguments of Fernando, he is right that Executive Search is facing a paradigm shift..... somehow.

His experience in the US market shows how hard it is for established firms to compete in a saturated market during sharp down-turns. Still, the major elements making a successful Executive Search practice remain in place: relationship building and management, experience and skill set development, sector and market know-how... elements that point to the software of the Search business, and though they invariable must adapt to the gyrations of the economic environment in order to prosper, the real possibilities towards a paradigm shift, as Fernando puts it, are in the hardware of the Search practice.

By this I mean how technology, properly applied, can leverage the essential soft elements of the business to a whole new level. With proper application I mean higher efficiencies, (much) lower costs and broader bandwidth in terms of market access and engagement. Research can dramatically benefit from a shift from phone based identification to learning the intricacies of search engine syntax and Database querying. For an idea check out the site of Glen Cathey. Centralizing the research function into a call centre type of operation could therefore be a thing of the past, as the advent of web 2.0 and 3.0 leads to an accelerating proliferation of information accessible by anyone owning a laptop and mobile (smart)phone.

The consultant-researcher and consultant-client communication can be similarly improved by redesigning the business processes that touch those contact points. Whereas in some Industries real-time business process integration and communication become unique competitive differentiators, most search firms today believe that improvement on attaching and sending files with email for all aspects of communication and information dissemination are hard to achieve; because the business is about "soft skills" like relationship building, pitching and candidate assessment,..... right ? Right, but as a bicycle is about transportation, so is a car, a truck, train, plane or ship. As we all very well know,technology leveraged transportation, because we do not walk or cycle to a client in a neighbouring city or state.  Technology can in a similar way leverage information and communication of a relationship centric business. Look to what Banks or Telecom operators learned about IT and apply day-in day-out.

Another element is knowledge management, or how insights and experience can be efficiently and efectively disseminated throughout a growing organization. This covers all area's of technology supported group decision making systems, and ditto supported cooperative networks. For the first time people spend more time now on social networks than writing and reading email, and the trend accelerates, even branches out in sub-branches, like a fractal tree. The big question, is how to model this huge intangible core assest of a search firm can be incorporated into the DNA of a company, so that researchers, consultants and partners through their day-to-day work schedule learn from the insights of others and equally contribute to the needs of others. This is not about flat or matrix organizational forms, but activity based learning and decsion making systems. Posting a webcast is one thing, a well composed bunch of slides can achieve the same - imagine a dashboard with drag and drop functionality informing managers about every measurable aspect of company activity, including search methodologies mapped into business processes that are to a great extent quantified and hence, also measurable in terms of quality, time, intensity and complexity, and can be correlated to any other set of data, individual, country sector etc.... I agree, such a system would be more expensive, but it is perfectly realisable.

Therefore, the answer to the question on how to improve research, client management, communication and consultant development lies in the proper organizational integration and application of IT = Information Technology. Much, much more on this topic in a future article.

Tremendous changes are happening in how people communicate and interact. The Internet is driving a new form of industrial revolution by itself, and offers new challenges and opportunities. Executive Search, while it can stay true to its core of relationship and knowledge management, and development, the real paradigm shift lies in leveraging those attributes with IT, and therefore such leverage can constitute a whole new unique core differentiator by itself. The end of business as usual in Executive Search could be near, but only when the Executive Search firm starts to understand and apply the possibilities of leverage offered by IT.

So Fernando, the proverbial End is NOT near, the Executive Search practice itself is highly susceptible to evolutionary and revolutionary changes. I look forward to them, because they will make the smaller firms more agile, stronger and immune to long standing advantages competitors hold because of their size and history.