Client behaviour

By Fiona Czerniawska.

Consulting firms are in a dilemma about how to organise their data & analytics capabilities most effectively: Should they have a stand-alone business unit, or should this expertise be embedded right across the organisation? The former has the advantage of signalling to clients that it’s an area of investment for the firm concerned, but the latter will help the firm differentiate itself on a tactical basis, by using evidence-based insights in proposals and in all its consulting work.

But this debate isn’t confined to consultants: It’s mirrored in their clients too. Earlier this year our Intelligent Analytics report featured several case studies from clients. “We're a small central team,” said the head of analytics in a French insurance company. “Up until a year ago, we reported to the CIO, but now we're part of the marketing and digital innovation function team.” And moving out of the IT function is only part of the organisational shift going on: There’s also pressure to take a more integrated approach to the way analytics work is carried out.

By Fiona Czerniawska.

Estimating the size of the digital transformation market isn’t easy. What do we mean by digital and how is this different to other, more established types of information technology? When is something labelled transformation actually transformational in practice?

We’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years tracking the size and growth of one part of the market: the work done by consulting firms. That’s not the whole picture, of course—it doesn’t take into account the amount of money clients spend on hardware and software, and it excludes systems development and implementation. Nevertheless, it’s a big number. In 2017, when the global consulting industry grew at around 7%, we estimate that demand for digital transformation consulting almost doubled in size.

By Fiona Czerniawska.

We recently asked around 100 senior people in large US-based organisations whether they’d be interested in converting traditional consulting work (short-term advisory work, paid on a fixed price or time and materials basis, measured on inputs rather than outcomes) into an on-going service, aimed at delivering a specific and concrete outcome, and involving a combination of software, data and analytics, and consulting expertise. Ninety-one percent said that they found that suggestion attractive, and three-quarters said they could envisage buying consulting in this way and that this could represent the future of consulting.

Perhaps that level of positive engagement shouldn’t have surprised us.