Driving IdeasIdeas move fast when their time has come.<strong>Consulting</strong>, Quo Vadis?he global <strong>Consulting</strong> industry is inT the midst of unprecedented change, sayGreg Baranszky and JJ Sendelbach of Doublejay<strong>Consulting</strong> LLC, and it’s creating three categoriesof Consultancy. Leaders, Followers and Sleepers.What big trends are shapingthe <strong>Consulting</strong> market?Greg: The global <strong>Consulting</strong> market is still slowlyrecovering from the downturn, but it’s far frombusiness as usual – and it may never be thatway again. Several major trends are combiningto create a more challenging environment for<strong>Consulting</strong> firms of all types. Competition is much,much tougher, with firms trying to eat each other’slunch; pressure on fees continues, except at thevery top of the very top tier; clients are doing farmore in-house; Return on <strong>Consulting</strong> is moreminutely dissected; Procurement Departmentsare ascendant, and non-traditional competitorsare muscling into <strong>Consulting</strong>, often riding strongclient relationships and hot topics such asSustainability. In our view these trends arenot flavors of the month, or even flavors of theyear. They represent a fundamental evolutionin the <strong>Consulting</strong> marketplace and every firmwill have to adapt to this new normal.What types of projectsare companies engaging<strong>Consulting</strong> firms with?Greg: This tends to vary by region and byconsulting service line. In the OperationsManagement space, our current researchshows that:• Many clients are moving away from their focuson cost-cutting and towards more strategic,growth-oriented operations projects.• Strategic supply chain management is hot,particularly in faster-growing emerging marketslike Brazil where the gap between clients’strategic plans and their existing production/supply chains is widest.• Sustainability, in all its guises, from broadcorporate responsibility projects to highly targetedsustainable supply chain work, is driving moreand more consulting revenue.JJ: Clients in all markets are pushing for morecomplex and integrated solutions that renderthe hand-off between strategy and operationsalmost imperceptible. ‘S&O’ - Strategy &Operations <strong>Consulting</strong> - is becoming the newbuzzword. As this amalgamation happens itwill be easier for the strategy people to say“I can do implementation” than for the “getyour hands dirty” Operations people to arguethat all of a sudden they can do strategy.From a client’s POV, the<strong>Consulting</strong> market appearsmore crowded than ever.Greg: That’s true. As we’ve already noted,firms are trying more aggressively than everto eat each other’s lunch by broadening theircurrent services lines and extending into newservice lines. This results in greater overlap inthe service mix of existing firms and a greaternumber of providers in each service line. TheOperations Management space is the best60 CLOSEWORK® GLOBAL REVIEW 2012
<strong>Consulting</strong> 2020example of this phenomenon. Strategy firmsare pushing ‘downward’ into OM; IT firms arepushing ‘upward’ into OM, and non-traditionalsuppliers, such as large engineering basedfirms, are pushing ‘inward’ into OM.How do you stand out insuch a crowded space?Greg: Truly differentiating is becoming moredifficult every day and is a key concern for manyof the firms we engage with on a regular basis.Clients are using words like ‘clones’ or ‘theswarm’ to describe their consulting providers –not words that any <strong>Consulting</strong> firm would liketo hear applied to itself.In a market where so many firms are so good,or at least competent, at so many differentfunctions, we see the real point of differentiationas the way that <strong>Consulting</strong> firms deliver theirservices - not necessarily the quality level ofthe services themselves, because the qualityis so similar.Our analysis shows that ‘Customer Experience’is composed of very specific elements that firmsmust get right to stand out from their competitors.These include knowledge transfer, joint clientconsultingteams, success-based fee structures,thought leadership that is more than marketingcollateral for the firm, and true partner-levelinvolvement in all phases of project delivery. Allof these raise not only traditional measures ofclient satisfaction but also what Doublejay callsclient involvement with a <strong>Consulting</strong> brand. Firmswhich score highly on client experience-basedinvolvement measures are the ones which becomethe go-to option in a client’s mind and trulystand out from their competitors. Some firmsunderstand this intuitively, but we have seenvery few that have systematized this approach.The ones which have are reaping the benefits.JJ: I was discussing this subject with a verysophisticated user of Management <strong>Consulting</strong>services at a Fortune 10 company and he said‘The best thing I can say is that when I send anemail to my <strong>Consulting</strong> partner on a Sundayafternoon asking a question, I get an email backanswering that question by Sunday evening.And he’s not charging me for that. So I willalways go back to that firm because that’swhat I’m looking for. Any firm can do the actualproject. I’m looking for something else.’What’s next in <strong>Consulting</strong>?What should companies andfirms alike be thinking about?JJ: Based on over 50 projects and marketresearch we have developed what we call‘<strong>Consulting</strong> Quo Vadis?’. In this scenario analysis,<strong>Consulting</strong> as we know it today, will disappearand will be replaced by two business models.The first one is best described in today’s terminologyas ‘high end staff augmentation’. It willentail everything that a company needs to setup, socialize, organize and run large scale andcomplex projects. Consultants in this categorycome through the door with three major ingredients:1. Tools, how to organize and run large projects,2. Experience, based on cases worked on before,3. And an unbiased outside-in viewpoint.The second category we have started toname ‘evidence based consulting. These areConsultancies who are absolute subject - andvertical - experts. No matter whether the projectis, a strategy, efficiency, finance, IT or HRproject, the Consultancy again brings threesignificant ingredients along:1. Hard fact evidence based on ‘big data’(historic and predictive business intelligence)2. True partnership with the client (long-standingrelationship with all levels and LOBs of the firm)3. A business model that lends itself to share in therisk and the rewards of the project with the client.Is there a game-changing business model comingour way that will make <strong>Consulting</strong> as we know ittoday a thing of the past? We believe absolutelyyes! And it is not going to be one or the other<strong>Consulting</strong> model of the future, it’s going to beboth! There is need and a place for both. Thegood news for consumers of <strong>Consulting</strong> thoughwill be that there will be significantly more choicesthan today. Where today’s decisions who to‘ The real point ofdifferentiation is theway that <strong>Consulting</strong>firms deliver theirservices.’work with and how are often made within theold boys club and with an eye towards boardroom assurance, tomorrow’s decisions will bebased on who has the most evidence in ourvertical and horizontal and who do we trust isour best partner in this regard today and forthe foreseeable future?Do you think <strong>Consulting</strong>firms recognize the speedof change?JJ: There are three categories of Consultancyout there: Leaders, Followers and Sleepers.That’s my answer.Greg: There are fewer Leaders than Followersand fewer Followers than Sleepers. Our view isthat these are fundamental changes that willalter the way <strong>Consulting</strong> is done. If they don’tadapt, many firms won’t be in existence in5 or 10 years.JJ Sendelbach is Managing Director at Doublejay<strong>Consulting</strong> LLC and Greg Baranszky is a Director.Doublejay <strong>Consulting</strong>, founded in 2003, is a strategicadvisor to the professional services industry.CLOSEWORK® GLOBAL REVIEW 2012 61
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