Читать книгу Value-Based Fees - Alan Weiss - Страница 33

I include these folks because they think they're smart and believe they've devised a billing basis that overcomes time units: a percentage of first-year compensation. (And some of these firms are contingency firms, not retainer firms, meaning they don't get paid unless they produce.)

I ask you to simply consider this: a search firm placed Lou Gerstner at IBM when that company was severely suffering. During his tenure, CEO Gerstner increased the stock price, improved the value of the company, gained market share, boosted both revenues and profitability, found new sources of lucrative business (for example, IBM consulting services), and provided a host of other important improvements. His net contribution to IBM's well-being is in the billions of dollars.

And how was the foxy search firm paid that placed him at IBM? It received about a third of his first-year total compensation. Let's say that was as much as $500,000, which I doubt. Even so, is a half-million fair compensation for a consulting firm that produced billions of dollars in improvement? I wouldn't accept it. It seems to me that $100 million or so is reasonable and cheap at twice the price.