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The world's fastest-growing large management consulting firm is determined to be different. Teiger calls Gemini's squadron of supersonic fighters flying half under construction" and operating at only 30% of potential--like .300 hitters in baseball unhappy at failing two out of three times.
In a world where few consulting firms take much of their own advice, Gemini is "a lab for our clients," says ceo Daniel Valentino.
The toddling 2-1/2-year-old Gemini is a significant experiment in the assembly of professional services: It's the child of operations/change consultants United Research and strategy-strong MAC Group, born in 1990 when French holding company Sogeti purchased the two practices (as well as Gamma International and, since then, several smaller consultancies) and combined them as Gemini. Cap Gemini--the systems house--is also owned by Sogeti and is Gemini Consulting's occasional partner on IT projects.
Don't breathe the names United Research or MAC Group around Gemini, and don't use the word "merger." "There was no merger," Teiger says. "Those two companies went out of business. We left behind those old services of change management and strategy and created a new business. We help our clients do the same thing."
In this way, Gemini leapfrogs the issue of having blended two sharply different cultures: MAC Group's academic, office-based strategy practice and United Research's non-office-based shirtsleeves applied-operations environment. It...