Arthur D. Little
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Arthur D. Little, Inc. is the world's first management consulting firm.[citation needed] 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, and NASDAQ. Today the company is one of the world's leading management consulting firms, working closely with Fortune 500 firms across the globe. ADL, as it is sometimes called, 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, ADL 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 ADL 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 ADL has about 1000 employees across 30 offices in 20 countries around the world, and typically manages around 2000 assignments in 60 countries every year. ADL 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 the CEO who successfully led the new ADL from 2001 (R. Clarke) stepped down and a new CEO (Dr M. Traem) was appointed and charged with continuing ADL's regrowth. ADL is currently ranked as one of the top management consulting firms. Vault.com 2006). ADL publishes a bi-annual thought leadership collection called PRISM (which is available from its website http://www.arthurdlittle.com/global/en/insights/prism or free on demand from any of the corporate offices)
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See alsoJean E. de Valpine, CEO of Memorial Drive Trust References
External linksAlumni Association: http://www.adl.com/alumni.htmlde:Arthur D. Little fr:Arthur D. Little ja:アーサー・D・リトル |
