Industry & Services >> CEO Interviews >> May 5, 2004
JAMES BEDARD is President & CEO of Aberdeen Group. As President & CEO,
Mr. Bedard is directly responsible for the strategic direction, research
point of view, and the day-to-day operations of the organization. Before
joining Aberdeen Group, Mr. Bedard, Jim Sims (founder of Cambridge
Technology Partners), Michael Treacy (coauthor of The Discipline of
Market Leaders and author of Double-Digit Growth: How Great Companies
Achieve It - No Matter What) built GEN3 Partners. As president of GEN3
Partners, Mr. Bedard developed an innovative business model that
delivered solution-based marketing programs to drive deal flow and
"private-label" professional services to software companies below the
current internal cost structure of their professional services
organizations. Prior to his tenure at GEN3, Mr. Bedard was a partner and
COO at Benchmarking Partners, a research-based consultancy that focused
on IT-enabled value chain best practices. Over a three-year period, Mr.
Bedard developed a $30 million, 140-person consulting practice focused
on research-based go-to-market strategies for software companies and ROI
from implementing IT-enabled best practices for end-clients. Mr. Bedard
spearheaded the development of supply chain collaboration, resulting in
the first industrywide, Internet-based B2B standard for collaborative
planning, forecasting, and replenishment (CPFR). Previous clients have
included Ariba, Capital Group, Cisco Systems, Dupont, Eli Lilly, EMC, GE
Information Services, GE Railcar, Glaxo Wellcome, IBM, Internet
Manugistics, J.D. Edwards, Nonstop Solutions, Oracle Software, Reebok,
Rhodia, SAP, and Sun-Maid Growers. Before joining Benchmarking Partners,
Mr. Bedard was managing director of retail and health-care markets for
the Uniform Code Council (UCC), an international article-numbering
organization that is responsible for the development of global health-
care and retail standards. During his tenure at the UCC, Mr. Bedard led
the development of the single global standard for health-care product
identification. With more than 750,000 member companies worldwide,
UCC/EAN is the preeminent global standards organization for automatic
ID, product identification, electronic messaging, and data structures.
Mr. Bedard received his B.A. in Economics from Bates College and an
M.B.A. in Finance from Central Michigan University. Profile
Mr. Bedard: Aberdeen was founded in 1988 as a research and consulting
organization, focused on helping technology decision makers assess
