Mel Bergstein Foresaw That Computers Would Transform Corporate Strategies
January 20 2017 - 5:59AM
Dow Jones News
By James R. Hagerty
Mel Bergstein was an early proponent of the idea that computers
weren't just about crunching numbers and would force a complete
rethinking of corporate strategies.
Mr. Bergstein in the late 1980s served as the world-wide
technology chief at Andersen Consulting, now known as Accenture,
and was an influential adviser to companies on how to make the best
use of computers and later the internet. He also was a pioneer in
outsourcing of information-technology functions to specialists.
In 1994, he founded Diamond Technology Partners Inc., a
Chicago-based firm that provided advice to companies seeking to
reinvent themselves for the internet age.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP acquired Diamond in 2010 for $378
million.
Diagnosed with leukemia in 2011, Mr. Bergstein was told he might
have only months to live. A bone-marrow transplant helped him
survive another five years. He died Dec. 25 at a hospital in
Evanston, Ill.
By the early 1990s, Mr. Bergstein noticed that corporate
data-processing departments, once undisputed masters of computer
purchases and usage, were losing power to people in other
departments determined to make their own hardware and software
choices. "The war is between the producers of revenue and the
back-office people," he said in 1992. "The producers are winning
the war."
In the late 1990s, he advised CEOs to get more involved in
setting internet strategy. Companies were accustomed to seeing
technology merely as a way to run existing processes faster and
cheaper, he said, but now had to transform themselves to obtain the
full benefits of the internet.
Mr. Bergstein preached that information technology should drive
corporate strategy rather than being an afterthought, said Paul
Carroll, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who worked at
Diamond for 6 1/2 years. Mr. Bergstein also believed that the
classic buttoned-down management consultant would find it hard to
connect with a 20-something tech wizard in a T-shirt. "Mel set
Diamond up to give the tech guys the same stature as the
traditional consultants," Mr. Carroll said.
Diamond's clients included Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Allstate
Corp. and General Motors. Mr. Bergstein insisted that Diamond's
corner offices be used for project teams, not executive offices. He
sent a voice-mail to all employees once a week to share news and
drive home his ideas about corporate culture.
Melvyn Edward Bergstein was born March 13, 1942, and grew up in
Manhattan's Peter Cooper Village apartment complex. His father was
in the stationery business, and his mother was a model. At the
University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, he studied economics
and accounting and earned a bachelor's degree in 1963, becoming the
first member of his family to graduate from college.
After working briefly at his father's stationery shop in
Manhattan, he joined the accounting firm Arthur Andersen & Co.
in 1968 and was named a partner in 1976. He helped set up
Andersen's consulting arm.
In 1989, he jumped to Computer Sciences Corp., El Segundo,
Calif., which designed and assembled complex IT systems for other
firms. He said he was tired of internal squabbles at Andersen. "I
want to solve client problems, not internal problems," he told The
Wall Street Journal. He added that he saw plenty of scope for
growth at Computer Sciences: "This is a chest-high fast ball. If I
miss it, well, shame on me."
In his new post, he helped arrange a then-novel contract under
which General Dynamics Corp. outsourced information-technology
operations to Computer Sciences.
Mr. Bergstein spent about two years in senior executive roles at
Technology Solutions Co., Chicago, and then left to set up his own
consulting company, Diamond. In 2010, the year it was sold, Diamond
employed more than 500 consultants and had offices in the U.S.,
London and Mumbai.
Mr. Bergstein is survived by his wife of 51 years, Tina, two
sons and five grandchildren.
Write to James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 20, 2017 05:44 ET (10:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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