It’s incredibly important for a communications company when advising corporate clients to have access to the titles in the world that influence them, and the FT is at the heart of that.
Managing Director, Public Affairs, FTI Consulting
From expert witness support to experts with impact
Established in 1982 by two engineers, FTI Consulting originally provided expert witnesses for litigation and demonstrated complex technical issues for juries. After rebranding in 1998, the company began directing its focus to performing financial surgery on troubled companies, such as through bankruptcy proceedings. Since 1999, FTI Consulting has been trading on the New York Stock Exchange as FCN and in recent years the company was listed as one of the 100 fastest growing US companies.
Today FTI Consulting ranks as one of the top business advisory firms operating across the globe. With its headquarters in Washington, D.C, FTI Consulting currently operates in over 28 countries. As a global business with an international client base, it is essential that advisers at FTI Consulting use in-depth industry analysis to capture any opportunities or risks.
The team at FTI Consulting describe themselves as ‘experts with impact’ and specialise in strategic communications, technology, economic consulting, forensic and litigation consulting and corporate finance and restructuring. All FTI Consulting staff are equipped with access to FT.com, which helps enhance their level of commercial awareness, knowledge of their clients and ensures they’re well-informed of the specialised markets they operate within.
Advisory support for new and existing clients
One challenge experienced by business advisory firms like FTI Consulting, is that in order to provide the best support, it must understand the relevance of breaking news and trends and how it could impact its client base. With access to an FT Professional Subscription, FTI Consulting’s team benefits from the full breadth of topics across FT.com. In turn they can navigate clients through news developments with the in-depth knowledge and accuracy of FT journalism.
Oli Winton is FTI Consulting’s Managing Director for Public Affairs based in London. Within his role, Oli emphasises that, “all our clients are incredibly different and there isn’t a one size fits all approach that we have to client relationship management.” Additionally when advising clients, Oli stresses the importance of “having an understanding and information is a key way that we want to be an extended part of a client’s team.”
With the FT’s agenda-setting coverage, companies like FTI Consulting are guided through important trends and help shape its decision making around any advice provided to its own clients.
I find the FT particularly useful as we often need to know information about our clients or understand markets and the environment that they’re working in, in order to provide them with the best advice. The FT is clearly one of the key titles for providing that sort of information for us.
Managing Director, Public Affairs, FTI Consulting
Having been with FTI Consulting for over 26 years, Brian Maddox is the Senior Managing Director for Corporate Communications, based in the US. When supporting clients, Brian explains that, “you have to move quickly to get yourselves in front of clients that are facing changing circumstances and they need assistance.”
In order to react favourably to breaking developments, time is of the essence. With an FT Professional Subscription, subscribers like Brian and Oli can set up alerts directly to their devices. Through myFT instant alerts, subscribers receive an instant email alert when there’s a new story on one of the topics they follow.
As well as managing existing clients, Oli uses FT.com to get up to speed when pitching to potential new clients. From learning about a business’s history to uncovering information about its competitors, the FT offers valuable context. “I wouldn’t often expect our clients to take the time to spend hours updating us about their business,” Oli explains. “Using the FT we learn more about our clients, especially at the point at which we pitch for their business.”
Understanding the importance of international perspectives
FTI Consulting has an employee and client base that cuts across continents. The company realises that having the right tools to understand the global perspective should always be front of mind.
Within his role, Brian explains that an international perspective is crucial. “The global marketplace is not just about American companies,” he says. “There are some very accomplished foreign companies worth studying and understanding.” For Brian and the team at FTI Consulting, it’s essential to recognise where and what the global opportunities are. An FT Professional Subscription helps expand that knowledge by publishing cross-border, real-world insights.
Whether they’re entering a new market or looking into economic trends, an FT Professional Subscription helps Brian “look across the spectrum, and not just at equities but we want to look at commodities and money flows in currencies,” he says. “I use the FT to understand investment policies, how our investors are treated and what the opportunities are.”
Over time, as our business at FTI has gone more global, the leadership and the key executives have started to read the FT much more than they used to. They recognise that almost any situation now is global. So firm wide, we encourage everyone to read the FT.
Senior Managing Director, Corporate Communications, FTI Consulting
Similarly to Brian, Oli comments on the international scope of the FT and the focus on “big global issues, whether it be coronavirus or Brexit, having global resources and understanding the global outlook to advise often foreign companies is a really important resource to have.”
Predominantly Oli’s role focuses on advising clients on their UK government relations. He uses the FT’s global perspective “as a resource for information and intelligence,” he adds. “While as political consultants our job is to get intelligence for clients, often things are trailed and briefed through the media.”
Managing the impact of emerging trends
There is a never ending churn of emerging trends presenting new opportunities and risks for businesses. As an advisory firm, FTI Consulting aims to stay abreast of trends or themes affecting the business environment. Simultaneously, advisers may need to help a client elevate their public prominence or even navigate them through identified risks.
Brian differentiates the FT from other news sources on the basis of its ability to monitor and explain trends. “It has an international scope and a focus on business, finance, and investing policies,” he explains. “The FT does a good job of watching social trends carefully and not taking a position within them, which is always helpful, instead just trying to understand them.”
The FT focuses on analysing trends and in-depth insights, yet remains an unbiased and accurate source of global news. “Three things may make a trend but it matters considerably which three things you’re picking,” Brian observes. “The FT is a trustworthy source that isn’t driven by a political agenda.”
An FT Professional Subscription connects the dots between different trends, regions and sectors. In turn, this assists subscribers like Brian and Oli to react to these global events, whilst managing their business strategies.
We advise businesses on their reputation, we’re a business ourselves, and the very nature of that means that we understand where they’re coming from.
Managing Director, Public Affairs, FTI Consulting
FTI Consulting understands the importance of staying well-informed about exclusive breaking news and trends and how it could affect business reputations. Both Oli and Brian comment on the speed required to react to breaking stories affecting their clientele. “All companies are aware of their reputations.” Oli explains. “Due to the impact that trends have on reputation, we’re extremely mindful of trends in business and how they affect us.”
With matters like this, Oli thinks that “having a one stop shop for information is really important.” Using an FT Professional Subscription allows subscribers to receive information they can readily digest and utilise as industry insights. FT tools such as myFT, allow subscribers to quickly navigate through relevant topics and follow stories most pressing to their industry.
When facing uncertain or changing circumstances, Brian stresses the importance of moving quickly to get in front of the client that needs assistance. “We need to deploy quickly with the same set of information in front of us.” He explains. “So the FT helps us that way.”
An FT Professional Subscription extracts the intelligence that’s relevant to your business and delivers it via the media and technologies that suit you best, saving you time and keeping you informed on what matters.
Request a free trial today and see how our award-winning journalism, from 600 journalists across the globe, can help you and your team make informed decisions and reach your goals faster.