The CEO of a not-so-prominent company X decides that for the sake of branding his firm, he has to write a few articles in a newspaper. This is how the article gets written.
1. Mr CEO approaches the head of a not-so-prominent consulting firm Y and asks him to write the article for him. Now, X has been one of the long-standing and steady clients of Y and Y makes a large amount of its money from X. So the head of Y has to agree.
2. The head of Y approaches a manager and shoves the article down him. “This is urgent and our relationship is at stake”, he says, “so you better put off whatever else you’re doing and write this article”.
3. The manager looks around the office and catches a couple of unsuspecting analysts. “I need your support, for just 8-10 hours, for this very important thing”. The analyst says “but… i am… working on this thing now”. Manager says “i’ll speak to your manager, and he won’t crib. so you better do this thing for me”.
4. Left with no choice, the analyst abandons whatever he is doing, and works on this article. Massive amounts of googling and placement of the data in strategic graphs so as to make things look good. By the end of the day, all the data and insights are in place.
5. Manager takes a look at this work, and takes it to the head of Y. Now, a “writing firm” is quickly contacted and asked to write and edit this article. Of course, Y will pay this writing firm for this. All this has been done under extreme timelines. Relationships with clients is important right?
6. The article gets published in the paper. The sole author is the CEO of X. He gets the required footage, and the paper gets its share of ads.
Such is life.