Arthur D. Little

Infobox_Company
company_
company_type = [Strategy / Management consulting]
foundation = 1886
location = 30 offices in 20 countries
key_people = Dr M. Träm, Global CEO
num_employees = about 1,000
revenue = 2005 239$m - 2006: US$unknown - 2007: US$unknown
industry = Management consulting
products = Management consulting services
homepage = [http://www.adl.com/ www.adl.com]

Arthur D. Little is an international management consulting firm, founded in 1886 by Arthur Dehon Little, an MIT chemist who discovered acetate, and co-worker Roger Griffin, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Arthur D. Little pioneered the concept of contracted technology research.

The company played key roles in the development of operations research, the word processor, the first synthetic penicillin, LexisNexis, and NASDAQ. Today the company is one of the world's leading management consulting firms, working closely with Fortune 500 firms across the globe.

Overview

Arthur D. Little grew quickly from its roots in contracted research into the lucrative management consulting services arena and defined itself as a pioneer and industry leader from the 1960s right through to the 1990s. It produced the European Commission's first white paper on telecommunications deregulation and helped privatize British Rail, generally regarded as one of the most complex privatization exercises in the world. By 2001, Arthur D. Little had 2000 employees around the world, but over-expansion of its management consulting business, coupled to management's failure to spin-off a niche high technology consulting practice, resulted in financial losses causing Arthur D. Little to file chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and effectively go out of business after 116 years. At an auction in 2002, Paris based Altran Technologies bought the Arthur D. Little brand name and financed a management buyout of the non-US offices.

In 2007, the new Arthur D. Little has about 1000 employees across 30 offices in 20 countries around the world, and typically manages around 2000 assignments in 60 countries every year. Arthur D. Little today has successfully rebuilt its Oil & Gas practice and is well regarded for its strong expertise in the telecommunications industry with additional centers of excellence in automotive, chemicals, healthcare and public sector consulting. Whilst Europe provided the bulk of the growth since 2002, its North American offices are expanding as it continues to manage high profile clients and assignments around the world.

In 2006 R. Clarke, the Chief executive officer who successfully led the new Arthur D. Little from 2001, stepped down and "Dr" M. Träm was appointed as Chief Executive Officer, and charged with continuing Arthur D. Little's regrowth. Arthur D. Little is currently ranked as one of the top management consulting firms. [ [http://www.vault.com/nr/consulting_rankings/consulting_rankings.jsp?consulting2007=2&ch_id=252 Vault.com 2006] ).] Recent growth since 2006 has been around 20% a year but much of this has been the result of acquisitions or of re-integrating separate offices using the ADL brand name.

Arthur D. Little publishes a bi-annual thought leadership collection called PRISM [(which is available from its website http://www.adl.com/prism.html or free on demand from any of the corporate offices)]

;Country offices
* Austria, Belgium, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Portugal, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States of America.

Notable current and former employees

;Business
* Bruce Henderson, founder of the Boston Consulting Group
* Charles Koch, Chairman and chief executive officer, Koch Industries
* Royal Little, founder of Textron, Inc.
* Dr. Devendra Singh, strategist
* Sam Malin, co-founder and CEO of Madagascar Oil
* H. Donald Wilson, ADL lead consultant to and first president of LexisNexis database

;Politics and public service
* Merrill Cook, former member of the United States House of Representatives from Utah.
* Glen Fukushima, advisor to U.S. President Bill Clinton
* James M. Gavin, US Army Lieutenant General and Strategist who developed airborne forces in WW2 and founded the 82nd Airborne Division, later US Ambassador to France
* [http://www.icheme.org/pr_and_media/latest_news/24_10_06release.html David Brown] , Chief Executive IChemE (Institution of Chemical Engineers)

;Other
* Winnett Boyd, engineer
* Fischer Black, economist
* Philip Chapman, Australian-born American astronaut
* Peter Glaser, inventor of the Solar power satellite
* Raymond Hainer, chemist and mentor of Donald Schon
* David Levy, inventor
* Pamela Low, developed the flavored coating for Cap'n Crunch cereal
* Donald Schön, academic
* Jack Treynor, economist
* Bernard Vonnegut, atmospheric scientist
* Jean E. de Valpine, CEO of Memorial Drive Trust

References

Further reading

* James Adams (1992). "Bull's eye". (Chapter Seven) Times Books.
* E.J.Kahn, Jr. (1986). "The Problem Solvers". Little Brown.
* Peter Herman (2006), "Managing other people, but not you own". adlbook.com

External links

* [http://www.adl.com Arthur D. Little] Official website
* [http://www.adl.com/prism.html PRISM: bi-annual thought leadership collection]
* [http://historywired.si.edu/object.cfm?ID=535 A Silk Purse From a Sow's Ear]
* [http://www.vault.com/nr/consulting_rankings/consulting_rankings.jsp?consulting2007=3&ch_id=252 Vault.com Survey of consulting firms rankings 2006]
* [http://www.icheme.org/pr_and_media/latest_news/24_10_06release.html ICHEME Official website]
* [http://www.adl.com/alumni.html Alumni Association]