What Does One Call Consulting These Days?
Query consultants about the state of the industry, and you’ll receive generally positive outlooks. The bullishness on growth seems directly connected to the plethora of buzzwords driving change. Digital … Block-chain … Analytics … every utterance in every market points to consultants as client-whisperers — sage advisors who can make sense out of these chaos-inducing disruptors.
So it made sense to us that the title of our February 16 state-of-the-industry webinar is “The Changing Face of Management Consulting”.
We selected this to translate in the most literal of ways. Despite the rosy prognostications of providers, buyers of consulting services appear vexed in answering a basic question: “Who is my consultant?”
We are predicting a fundamental shift in the consulting industry over the next decade (if not sooner). Our view on the integrated consulting model upends the business models of traditional consulting service providers, who continue to operate in relative silos. Global firms privately admit that traditional time-based, project-based consulting is unsustainable for firms of, shall we say, a certain size.
It’s simple math: dwindling labor market < pyramid consulting model < smaller/shorter projects. To cite Bono, global firms are “running to stand still.”
The upheaval we’ll witness will be both from a business-model standpoint and well as with personnel. We’ve talked about firms partnering with clients in very direct ways — essentially becoming the John Baptiste to Stephen Colbert. At the other end of the spectrum, firms must re-position themselves with the next generation as not only employers of choice, but ones with long-term potential that transcend increasingly fractious partnerships.
For all the positivity, there is an underlying tension that makes these nervous times indeed. We hope you can join us in the conversation.
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