Specialist firms

For some time now one of the truisms of consulting has been that you can either be a (big) brand or a (small) specialist; anyone in the middle ground will either be absorbed by a bigger player or dispersed among smaller ones.

Around a quarter of the 400+ clients we questioned recently were HR directors; most were significant buyers of consulting services.  The striking thing about talking to so many of them is how rarely they voluntarily talk about the big HR consulting firms, even though many use their services. This paradox appears to stem from the fact that they think of these firms primarily in terms of administration rather than “consulting”.  “We don’t use any of the big HR firms except on payroll and remuneration issues,” was one, typical comment.

I’ve written a lot in this blog about specialisation, particularly clients’ relentless quest for expertise in a world that has become increasingly flat from a skills point of view. But a recent article in the Harvard Business Review had made me wonder how far it will all go, or – less positively – where it might all end.