Business model

No, this isn’t a series of observations about client “dependency” on consultants.

Interviewing people for our recent report on strategy consulting, I was struck by this phrase. Coined by Muir Sanderson at Booz in London, he was referring to the way in which consulting firms, particularly strategy ones, have been escalating their attempts to build and keep client relationships in recent years.

Consultants really don’t help themselves sometimes.

The word “product” is one most firms would like to steer clear of. They think it smacks of a supermarket approach: put a standardised consulting process in a box, pile it high and sell it cheap. But this is a very narrow-minded way of thinking about it. Sure, you can productise a process in such a way that anyone can do it, destroying value to the client and consulting firm alike. But you can also take a more Lego-like approach, either: