Marketing

Consulting is always being commoditised but has yet to become a commodity.

Commoditisation has always snapped at the heels of the industry, but emerging challenges and new technologies has historically allowed the industry, on balance, to stay ahead. And that’s what consultants do: they keep on running.

But just occasionally it’s worth looking back over our shoulders to understand exactly how and why consulting services become commoditised. After all, if we could slow down that process, perhaps we wouldn’t be so breathless.

Carrying out some research recently, I suddenly realised that each of the Big Four firms have now taken ‘ownership’ (in that special marketers meaning of the word) of one of the major colours. Was this deliberate? Suddenly I’ve got a picture in my mind of the Chief Marketing Officers from each firm sitting round a table, each with a large cuban in one hand and a balloon of Louis Treize in the other. They're eyeing each other nervously. Blue (KPMG) and yellow (Ernst & Young) have already been agreed; red and green remain in play.

What is it about the consulting industry? It picks up harmless, unassuming phrases and converts them into linguistic behemoths. “Working in partnership” is now so ubiquitous it’s become the equivalent of an “um” or “er” in a firm’s marketing material, filling the gap when it can’t think of anything else to say.