SJH Consulting is a successful firm founded 10 years ago by three experienced consultants who left a major consulting company to set up their own practice. They have slowly expanded, mainly using associates (that is independents, not directly employed by them), although they have recruited four permanent employees. They have a strong client base, though more than half of their current business comes from one large multi-national electronics company. They feel that the time is now right to expand further and decide to take the unprecedented step of looking to hire three more permanent employees at the same time. This is a big move for them as it will require a lot of time to be spent on the recruitment process by the three senior directors and will have an impact on short-term cash flow, as the new recruits will probably not start earning fees straightaway. The three directors debate about what type of employee they want to recruit. Most of their business has been in operations management, mainly working for industrial companies. So they are facing the usual dilemma of most small consulting practices: whether to expand their technical or their industry expertise. They decide eventually on three candidates. Mr A has worked for many years at their old firm in the operations management practice, although his most recent experience has been with a different sector: financial services. Mrs B has worked for three years at a large strategic management consultancy and had over 10 years previously working in industry. Her skills and expertise are in consumer goods and marketing. Mr C has never been a consultant but has had 15 years working as a manager in a range of consumer service companies. The hope is that between the three new recruits, they will bring insights and contacts in new industries, principally financial services and consumer goods and services. In addition, they will add new skills in terms of marketing, sales and business development. Q1 If you were the directors of SJH Consulting, would you have approached the expansion of the business in this way? What would you have done differently? Q2 Which of the three candidates would add most value to their business and why?