(Newswire.net — March 18, 2020) — Business consultants have been long relied upon by companies for expert advice and analysis (the earliest management consultant firms were born in the late 1800s.) But one of the biggest shifts in the past 10 years or so, says Vladi Gorelik who heads VG Consulting Services in Madison, Wisconsin, is due to more advanced technology. More specifically, businesses can now access data analytics in digital format that can tell them a lot about customer behavior, sales trends, and more. However, notes Vladi Gorelik, that doesn’t mean a company will be able to best apply the data they have access to.
That’s where a business consultant comes into the picture, he notes. It’s about more than relaying data – a business consultant now looks at the data and helps to create strategies from it, explains Vladi Gorelik. That may mean identifying a different market, developing new products, or streamlining business practices, he adds.
Keeping Up With Digital Transformation
A business consultant can help a company make better use of its analytical tools, but also helps businesses stay on top of the rapidly changing technology including AI and blockchain in order to remain competitive and best service their clients, he explains. At the same time, digital connectivity means that consulting firms now have to communicate more often in real-time with the client and other stakeholders to deliver updates, he adds.
Along with more access to data comes more need to protect data. In the past 10 years, hackers have targeted more and more businesses to exploit data, and the majority of them are not large operations, he explains. That means consulting firms have had to become better versed in cyber security in order to protect potentially sensitive client information.
Digital is only one piece of the puzzle, as consulting has shifted in other ways over the past several years, explains Vladi Gorelik.
More Niche Services
There has also been another big shift in the business consultancy industry in the past decade: how services are delivered. As competition increases in the market, businesses are now seeking out smaller, more niche business consultants that are deeply knowledgeable about particular topics, he explains. That amounts to a move away from a “one size fits all” approach to service delivery to customizing services depending on the needs of the company, explains Vladi Gorelik.
That might entail not only meeting the client’s request to analyze their business practices, but also to decide if the client is examining the right areas of their business to improve. Consultancies have to evolve to ensure the client is asking the right questions, instead of the older model of simply responding with a blanket solution, he notes.
Meanwhile, some of the bigger consultancies may be poised to lose market share to smaller firms with only a handful of employees are on the rise, he adds. Economic uncertainty is partially driving this trend, as businesses look to increase the amount of value they get from business consultants – particularly to find efficiencies rather than using larger firms to help manage major projects such as business scaling, for example.
Disruption is another key driver that has also impacted some of the largest firms harder, he notes. The more nimble firms that have embraced disruption from technology are ready to outpace traditional firms that have a large number of analysts that push out reports that are outdated quickly, he adds.
Forward-facing consultancies are also looking more at how to increase their own operational efficiency, says Vladi Gorelik. That could mean that a boutique firm outsources some of the research tasks, while spending more time speaking face-to-face with the client, he adds.
As client needs and deliverables change, the way a business consultant charges for their services is also changing from an hourly model in some instances. Instead of billing for the time it takes to generate a report that can be relevant for only a short time, some consultants are moving to a value-based billing structure that focuses on how it will actually benefit the client versus how much time was spent on a project, he explains.
Adapting To The Future
The rise of startups means more entrepreneurs are seeking expert consultants in niche areas to help them get off the ground and gain an edge against competition, says Vladi Gorelik.
However, while the growth of the consultancy sector slowed with the pace of the world market, competition among consultancies became fierce, he adds. As a result, business consultants had to improve their expertise and collaboration in order to stand out and succeed.
Today, the consulting industry is seeing growth, driven by the need for companies to overcome technological barriers and even to understand and comply with new regulations, he concludes.