Tag: Consulting

Consulting Disruption: Adapting in the AI Era

The HBR article by Prof Clayton Christensen on Consulting Disruption came out in 2013. It was way before any AI wave. The writing was on the wall then. With USD 50 subscriptions to ChatGPT Pro, entire sustainability reports are being written. This situation is a clear warning for lazy consulting work. Such work does not warrant an expense.

Consulting, of all typologies, was never about reports, it was about solving a problem. Clients never paid for EIAs or ESGDDs. They paid for ticking off the requirements for conditions precedent on a loan tranche. It could also be for a construction permit. The shift from risk management and compliance to value creation is never more urgent.

Entry-level analysts will face challenges. Consultants need to add technical expertise. This need is evident from expert hires at the MBB strata too. Cost arbitrage which India and the Philippines brought in for its English prowess is nullified by Grammarly Pro. The Client with a lean ESG Manager with a college intern with LLM can fill up all ESG compliances such as BRSR and CDP.

The knowledge provider ecosystem includes consultancies, law firms, university think tanks, and research institutes. They vie with information providers for the same target audience. The client has plenty of options unless there is a critical reputational capital risk at hand.

Consulting firms will shrink unless the focus is on value creation through implementation support and getting back to the ‘jobs to be done’ focus.

The key question for fellow consultants is:

What are we doing which LLMs cannot do?

Or

What internal teams can suffice as they have domain expertise?

Professional Service Firms that do statutory compliances will sustain. This is especially true in the regulatory sphere such as Assurance. However, tech will encroach there as well. There will be a nudge towards process reforms such as self-verification.

Expertise and Trust are non-negotiable, as Private Banking and FinTech have their respective clientele.

Consulting Skills Decoded

A consultant (strategy or technical) is a strange creation of late capitalism. The person has to be a dynamic sales guru who at the same time, is a versatile thought leader gaming the market trends, while staying true to cold data, in narrative and quantitative variants. Schizophrenic at best, as he has to define the problem, while simultaneously solving it.

Rebooting Consulting Value

Consulting is a knowledge centric industry where the client needs are met through knowledge solutions rendered through reports, training sessions and on site deployments of the ideas suggested. Thanks to the Web 2.0 era, the consulting malaise of Cntrl +C and Cntrl+V  can be easily detected, and fortunately the client too has the secondary same data set and information asymmetry is on an even footing.The fourth industrial revolution with the advent of machine learning driven predictive modelling and data gathering through bots, is ratcheting up the game for the consultant.

The best package for the consulting space is to merge the professionalism of the Investment Banking sector with the intellectual rigor and writing of liberal arts academe and to remove the ‘expert’ pretensions and work on delivering value, by thinking out of the box and delivering expectations at the correct price point. The transition from vendor to partner cannot happen cannot occur sans a value driven culture.

Long term collaborations between client and consultant is a rare commodity unless a Master Services Agreement is available, and this alone is the domain of the big players, where the niche, small sized consulting firm cannot even bid for them many a time, for a retainer services arrangement as they cannot match the scale.

The pressures on the margins on every report churned out is significant and the focus is on the billings of the quarter rather than investing in long term bets which are capital intensive such as technology deployments and training.

Consultants will have to be agile and intellectual with an eye for implementation potential in order to demand top dollar as the sharing economy of freelancers (with many  hiring independent contractors) is further reducing margins. Overheads such as a big office on the 21st floor seem like a luxury that few can afford. The shared working space or the friendly neighborhood coffee shop is more like it for small players. Big ticket contracts in the public sector are increasingly being made accessible to start ups in Singapore and India, as the best bang for the buck is expected.

Consultants have to walk the talk on their ideas with the client, with implementation support on the ground. The new mantra could be ‘Be implementable, or perish’ inverting the academic adage.

 

 

 

Create your market. The world will buy your product.

I am a former  advanced grad school research student in Sociology, a trained Environmental Engineer with a undergrad degree in Biotech Engineering with a passion for public policy (I studied a minor in public policy too in my first masters). With this versatile background, it will be a difficult exercise to sell my narrative to the employer in bits and parts, but as a holistic skill-set offering it’s a unique offering.  Well, this post is not a vanity initiative but a post I have intending to write for a while since a very good friend coaxed me to share my experience regarding making the grade from research in to consulting?  I have a lot of friends who are in academic research who want to make the transition to real world aka Industry.  Industry is a real contact sport, a lot less dreamy and lighter on intellect, more hands on business. It means dealing with real client pressures every day, navigating business cycles, making it better than the person in the cubicle next to you.  Academic Research has the leverage of time. My first industry CEO told me: “Consulting, is quick, applied research”. I found my immediate connect, merging research and business. Bingo.

When I started blogging, a received a barrage of stinging reviews. ‘You write average stuff’ was the initial feedback, but i did not stop expressing. Three years down the line, i am on international TV (Al Jazeera International) on a debate with my icons, discussing the Food Security Bill. Have faith in your ability. A book is next up the bend.

Whatever subject you are majoring in grad school whether it is English Literature or Physics, here are a few simple things if implemented in a steadfast fashion could yield rich dividends in terms of making the right dent for you.

Start engaging in the clubs/non-profits in grad school– I worked with GIVE.Sg and AIESEC (Still work with them whenever there is a match) : This helps in expanding ones circle or ‘the network’, learning an additional skill-set like sales and proving ones mettle (I did research and strategy for them, my comfort zone). I learnt to be a better people’s person at AIESEC. It is soft boarding your surf into industry.

The key take-way from this : Create ‘Shared Value’ for yourself and your stakeholders that you operate in.

Start Blogging and Tweeting – Helps bring your passion and niche across : If you are a quantum physicist with an inclination for numbers and photography, start a photo blog or crunch data and distil insights for the uninitiated.

If you are an English Major, do PR/Communications for a start-up or for the more ambitious self-publish a poetry collection.

 If people do not open when you knock, break the door not by banging it but manufacturing a gayle force wind which will unlock the door naturally.

Create a Linkedin Account : More Professional and impactful. Use the InMail function wisely.

Join Industry Groups and Associations as Student Member : Access to Industry Professionals (I was a student member of the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore)

Try and get a mentor : makes life easy

These measures take time to gain critical mass, and if you are planning to take the Industry plunge start asap. There is no substitute to hard skill and hard work, but if you have a passion and skill, learn to demonstrate it to the world. Social Media is free. Social Marketing is not.

Get an Idea Sijee