Specialist firms

By Fiona Czerniawska

Clients love a specialist. In a previous article on this blog I’ve discussed how the extent to which clients’ rating of the quality of consulting work is very influenced by whether they see the firm concerned as a specialist. The more specialised a firm is seen to be, the higher the quality of its work is rated.

By Alison Huntington

No, this isn’t another article about why French women are so thin compared with us frites-loving Brits. Or about the ever-expanding waistline of Gérard Depardieu. It’s about how size matters when looking at the 2.4% growth notched up by the French consulting market in 2014. And it matters in several ways.

Could a need for specialism be pushing clients into the arms of academics?

Something has cropped up in a number of conversations with clients recently: the use of academics in place of consultants. It's a bit early to tell just how widespread the trend is (if it is, we'll report on it when we publish our next round of client research in 2013) but it seems worth mentioning because it's consistent with a number of other trends we've been observing for some time.