To our clients and friends:

If you were to take even a cursory view of the latest technology buzz, it would be difficult to miss the topic of "cloud computing." With industry giants such as Microsoft, SalesForce.com, Amazon, and IBM leading the charge along with a large multitude of start-ups it is easy to conclude that the IT landscape is changing once again. Furthermore, one of the industries poised to take advantage of this change is the Financial Services industry. In this issue of Best of the West, our Financial Services team takes a closer look at cloud computing: what is it, and is it right for your environment?

Also in this issue, we address several other timely topics, such as improving sales and marketing on a budget. The current economic environment is forcing companies to look for new ways to sell and market more efficiently. Those that attempt to continually evaluate and improve their sales function rather than looking for a quick fix to their sales problems often have more success.

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) webinar series.
Enterprise Content Management continues to be a hot topic. Just last month, Consultants News featured our Customer Solutions leader, Doug Armstrong, discussing how West Monroe Partners has reduced costs by boosting productivity and collaboration-largely through our use of a SharePoint based portal.

Indeed, Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 is one of today's most versatile and useful business tools. West Monroe Partners is hosting a webinar series to review several of the many ways that SharePoint can help boost productivity and collaboration.

On June 17, we will conclude the series with a look at "Reporting tools for SharePoint." A SharePoint platform can improve business intelligence through its ability to integrate with Excel Web Services, SQL Reporting Services, and PerformancePoint. This webinar explores the possible opportunities to use Microsoft's reporting tools and SharePoint's capabilities for generating and consolidating key performance indicators. Register now.

News from our Healthcare practice.
Finally, I am pleased to introduce Anwer Khan, who joined West Monroe Partners last month as director of our Healthcare practice. A recognized healthcare and life science leader and holder of several patents related to healthcare data management, Anwer adds significant strategy and technology experience to West Monroe Partners' Healthcare practice-one of our firm's industry strengths and areas of focus.

Anwer joined West Monroe Partners from Diamond Management Technology Consultants. As a principal for Diamond's Healthcare and Life Science vertical, he served as a management and technology advisor to senior industry executives, managed all aspects of industry IT and business strategy projects, and developed viewpoints on topics ranging from IT financial management to healthcare and IT standards and legislation. His knowledge and leadership are a welcome addition to our team.