Recently, the landscape of global and local markets has changed beyond recognition. However, one can often hear about revolutionary changes in industry, finance or healthcare, than in management consulting working in the same industries.

Why is this area lagging behind customer needs? What does a business need and how should consulting be transformed?

A successful business did not notice how it ended up in a managerial impasse. To manage holding structures, grandiose teams of managers are hired, which, with the declared high level of qualifications and strategic knowledge, do not always show real effectiveness. Specialists of this level brilliantly work within the framework of reporting, but they hardly go down to the ground and, as they say, do the work by hand. The situation is aggravated by a growing lack of qualified management personnel. In these conditions, the business has no choice but to constantly seek the help of consultants.

But in the consulting services market, there has been a conceptual crisis. Many players stay afloat only because of their prestige, good branding and established customer relations. Today, business consulting is inflexible, slowly adapts to market realities in the digital age and generally does not solve global business needs. Due to the high pace of market development, the recommendations of business consultants often become obsolete as soon as they are given. The strategies and analytics that they issue are poorly implemented in practice or even put in a long box. As a result, confidence in the consulting industry is declining. Companies increasingly prefer to turn to independent experts with a narrow industry specialization - according to Integrity Research, the global cost of paying for their services is close to $ 1 billion.

Businesses do not need advisers, but practitioners with extensive experience that will help transform existing models into more effective ones from the inside.

Billing for consulting based on hourly or daily cost of services is now becoming obsolete. First of all, it is necessary to evaluate the real value of consulting for business.

In 2019, the Resources Global Professionals conducted a study among 450 companies to find out what they expect from a consulting partner and in what perspective they see interaction with him. Analysts concluded that the previous two-way consulting model, which included only a consultant and a customer, no longer works. It requires the participation of independent and experienced industry experts who will take on the implementation of the project with guarantees of a specific result.

It is private consultants who constitute today a new competitive area of ​​the consulting market. But it is not always convenient for business to work with them - you have to hire a large number of small specialists without getting a big picture and an integrated solution. For example, any high-profile lawsuit has consequences in communications and media. When two contractors deal with this problem, chaos occurs. Clients, as a rule, do not want to break the problem into components.

What to do small companies with a narrow specialization in a changing market? Combine with similar companies of a different profile and form large, diverse expert consulting firms.

Large consultants, realizing the need to transform their business, have already taken such a path — they acquired medium-sized firms with solid expertise. For example, Capgemini recently combined consulting and IT businesses, and Accenture bought the advertising agency Karmarama.

As a result of market development, priority will be given to full-cycle consulting companies combining high-class specialists. At the same time, the effectiveness of such newly formed companies will turn out to be several times higher than the world monopolist consultants. And there is an explanation for this - the consultant will assess not the risks of other companies, but their own. In the venture capital industry, they like to say that an idea is worthless if it does not have at least some pilot project.

A similar recommendation goes into consulting - a strategy without responsibility for the result will remain only a beautifully designed presentation.

That is why consulting needs to move towards financial guarantees. The real responsibility begins with participation in profits as a result of changes and can be embodied in entering the client business as a minority shareholder, at least in the form of an option. The task of consulting is to help businesses save and make money. And all this needs to be calculated. Any legal case, any financial audit and communication strategy are changes in the business, moreover, monetary changes. For each such step and its result, all parties involved must bear financial responsibility. Otherwise, consulting will be expensive and not always useful analytics.