THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The sale of the controversial Brown - Wilson group's assets to Datamonitor, a leading business information and market analysis group, is seen as an attempt by the former to garner credibility and acceptibility in the face of some stinging criticism. Industry sources in the US point out that Brown - Wilson, who ranks outsourcing companies, do not rank so high on credibility ratings themselves! The sale of assets may be a strategy to get rid of the 'infamous' tag, especially in the face of rising competition. Datamonitor, in turn, gets hold of the huge database and the publicity organised by the former.
Datamonitor had acquired the assets of Brown - Wilson for an undisclosed sum a month ago.
Doug Brown and Scott Wilson, directors of the company and authors of The Black Book of Outsourcing, joined Datamonitor group as part of the deal, says a press release from Datamonitor.
The Black Book had faced severe criticism across the globe for the methodology adopted and the aggressive strategy to promote themselves.
Industry and media had attacked the five-year old self-styled researchers on various fronts.
Critics thought that even leading business publications were guilty of giving undue publicity to the comparative newcomers without crosschecking on the credibility and depth of their findings.
Interestingly, the biggest blow to Brown & Wilson was the exposure of some dubious stunts to promote themselves, especially by a hard hitting article in the BusinessWeek last year.
However,it must also be noted that BusinessWeek is the sister company of another marketing information service provider - J D Power, both owned by McGraw - Hill Companies Inc.
Here are some of the exposures: Last year an article appeared on their web site, which was apparently published by CIO Magazine, comparing Brown -Wilson favourably to two of its rivals. When CIO Magazine clarified that it never published any such article, Brown - Wilson Group put the blame on the agency which supplied stories about them.
The photo of a natty building in the website alongside their office address also brought embarassment as it later turned out that they never owned any such building and the address they had provided was that of a UPS store, where they have a mail box! The photo of the building and the controversial CIO article have since been taken off their website.