Business advisory services trends

The consulting industry is big and it’s still growing. It's highly profitable. And it's about to be disrupted.

This said multi-billion industry's focus is mainly, but not limited to, strategy, operations, tax, finance, HR, or agribusiness. Business consultants are a staple of corporate life and today, over 700,000 consulting firms provide services across virtually all aspects of business globally. From defining the strategic direction to simply serving as an additional pair of hands for outsourced work, consultants have become inextricably linked to the success of most large organizations.

However, as the industry booms, new changes and trends will need to be implemented and in this article, we will be discussing some changes that are influencing the way the industry evolves. 

According to cited experts, these key trends below may develop in the industry this year and more years to come.

In no particular order, these are the trends:

Talent Management

The performance of a consulting firm is directly correlated to the wealth of talent it possesses and can deploy in a particular engagement. Clients are selecting team members who will work on their engagement. While scouting for the best talent, firms are looking beyond the boundaries of universities and focusing on specific skill sets to bring on board diverse candidates with unconventional and creative aptitudes.

There is an emerging trend where consulting firms are devising ways to sell services or products that are not dependent solely on the resources employed.

Rise in technology automation

Sophisticated technologies that systematize certain consulting functionalities like research, analysis, and modeling are considered to be significant complements to consulting specialist’s skills. For example, asset-based consulting is a tech-driven innovation which reduces project leading and completion times and provides extra functionality at low costs. According to Consulting Researcher, last year many companies spent on asset-based consulting to create cloud-based software & automate the accounting process for clienteles at minimum costs.

Strategic partnerships with market research partners

Clients prefer to engage with service providers that deliver fast and flexible services as compare to those that stick to defined policies and frameworks. In line with this, many leading business consulting companies are engaging with market research firms to cut short with anything associated with collecting data and providing actionable understandings by spending extra time on formulating strategies.

Better online collaboration among stakeholders

The higher request for on-demand consulting options led to the rise of an innovative service delivery model, wherein, consulting services are offered via online platforms. For example, many business consultant companies operate a global network working collaboratively on the web platform to help clients find solutions to strategic challenges.

Changing the Rules

As smarter clients look to realize the economic value of consulting firms and competition in the market increases, it is crucial to pursue value-based pricing models. Move towards this fee structure is slow as consultants in strategy and other areas are not aggressive in promoting its feasibility. Clients, on the other hand, continue to complain about the high cost of traditional fee structures.

Multi-sourcing

Gone are the days when a large multipronged project would be awarded to a single consultant and consultancies would have all the capabilities in-house to deliver solutions to clients. By contrast, it is becoming increasingly difficult for a single firm to offer all services, given the transformation in various practice areas. Firms are, therefore, partnering with specialists to offer a whole spectrum of services. Concurrently, corporates are increasingly asking multiple firms to collaborate so that they receive expertise in every niche area of a single large project.

This has led to the emergence of disruptive models, of which the most notable is “crowdsourcing.” In this model, a network of freelancers and small firms come together online to provide solutions to a client.

Growth in offshoring

Clients choose to have onsite suppliers over offshore ones because of the fact of great exposure. According to online surveys on in-sourcing and outsourcing in the past few years, 50%–60% of participants choose to restraining offshoring to be enacted in.

Whether you are deciding between setting up a company or setting up a trustful partner, choosing the correct business advisory services is a significant decision and one that needs to align with the business goals. Additionally, as these objectives change and the business grows, it may be essential to restructure the business. 

The professional experts' assistance will guide you through all of the significant options during these important periods. You need to approach a well-known and reliable business consulting firm in order to get excellent guidance to run your business to its full potential.

Unpredictability in the marketplace

Whether you are talking business or politics, these are turbulent times. The consulting marketplace is evolving quickly from one that relied primarily on interpersonal contact to develop new business (networking or personal referrals) to a wide-open battlefield on the Internet. Increasingly, that is where firms are doing battle and buyers are selecting the winners.

But there is more feeding the market frenzy than business development changes. The whole landscape is rapidly evolving, too — acquisitions and mergers are happening at a record pace, and new well-funded firms with different business models pop up with unnerving frequency. This churning marketplace is here to stay, and the most successful firms will learn to adapt to uncertainty.

In conclusion, turbulent times generate tremendous change, and this is precisely the reality that management consulting firms are facing today. To adapt to rising marketplace pressures, to get ahead and stay there, they will have to adopt an array of marketing techniques. But deep in the forge of adversity lies opportunity — to build resilient and robust brands.