When the Child Becomes the Parent ...

Given the level of influence that The Hackett Group has in boardrooms today, it's no surprise that AnswerThink -- Hackett's parent company -- would adopt the name of its famed advisory group as its own. Except for Hackett, AnswerThink is a somewhat undifferentiated IT consulting and integration shop. But Hackett -- which has extensive expertise and brand cache as a top notch benchmarking and advisory firm -- has few rivals for the specialized work which it's known for. In the Spend Management arena, Hackett's Pierre Mitchell and Chris Sawchuck have built quite a reputation for themselves and their benchmarking and advisory practice over the years. Perhaps in a small way, this name change owes in part to all the work they've done to put forward the Hackett brand. So given this change, what do you think the chances are that Harte-Hanks will now change their name to Aberdeen? Just kidding.

- Jason Busch