Over the years, business consulting has always taken this strict and high-end kind of arrangement. Within the advent of the important digital space, the ground is shifting. Many big consulting firms are forced to adapt to new developments. This article will look at the new developments in the industry. Also, it will look at how each affects the way business consulting landscape is changing.
- Digital space consulting
In the past, companies engaged physically. It became very hard to offer consulting services to companies away from your locality. Even if you did, you had to physically engage or spend quality time exchanging correspondence.
Today, an IT company in France can offer its services to a company here in states and elsewhere in the globe courtesy of digital transformation. With the advent of digital exchange, consulting firms have grown tremendously because they can offer services to more companies, engage more with their clients to streamline service and promote overall rapport.
However, digital space has also brought a challenge for big corporations. Because of the ubiquity of the digital footprint and its simplicity, the explosion of small consulting firms has brought in unprecedented competition to the big firms. The big firms have to adapt to compete.
- Advent of digital consultants
Using the internet and a home office, a consultant has started his business already. Since he or she is alone, he or she offers specialty consulting. For example, if his or her field of expertise is digital marketing, that is what he or she will offer to his or her clients. It becomes an interesting field for the person to a point that the person can do better than even fully established marketing firms do.
Again, because the consultant has few clients, customization and innovation can be incorporated. Sometimes the results are so good for the client that the client is ready to spend heavily to keep the consultant.
On the other hand, established consulting firms tend to do more than one thing. They tend also to standardize service. The room for creativity and innovation is small. This boring approach is not exciting to companies that want to target emergent generations.
To compete, consulting firms are using consulting space for various experts working under them. In such spaces, the consultant works almost independently. Some firms also engage freelance consultants within their ranks to attract the digital-verse under 40 population of business owners.
However, they still have to compete with the gig (freelance) economy.
- The gig economy
According to Charles Lubbat , a swimming pool consultant, businesses today have to contend with the allure of freelancing. A freelancer can work on his or her own schedule and therefore he or she gets to experiment and experience life. Industry experts are quitting the comfort of pension in big consulting firms to work as independent consultants.
Charles believes that some of them never regret that decision. For swimming pool design consulting companies to keep a well-known expert in their ranks, they have to break their banks because even in private capacity, the gig economy will employ the expert fully. Swimming pool design consulting firms have to compete with this runaway projects and talent.
To do that, they have to structure their working schedule to fit that of a freer environment. Some have introduced project-based working arrangement.
- Work-from-home arrangement
If the project does not require the expert from going to the office, why should he or she be forced to go? This improves the relations between the expert and the company and accord the expert a freer environment where he or she can exercise freedom and innovation. The result is a complex working environment for the consulting firm but well worth the effort.