Changes in Global Management Consulting

For the last five years, the economies of both developed and developing countries have grown more volatile. In response, companies need to make fast yet strategic decisions, especially in their overseas financial operations.  

Moreover, companies need to be competitive by keeping up with fast technological advancements and mitigating risk due to political uncertainties and regulatory requirements. 

Because of these challenges, a global management consulting firm has risen.  

According to Adroit Market Research, the market size of management consulting firms could potentially reach USD 343.52 billion by 2025. 

What exactly do management consultants do? 

Management consultants advise businesses in these areas: 

• Corporate strategy on the direction of the company, based on industry trends 
• Marketing and sales to position products and services to the target market 
• Organizational design by identifying workflow changes 
• Process and operations management to improve business processes 
• Maximizing human resources to serve the company’s goals 
• Finance 
• Information technology 

Companies are heavily dependent on consulting companies to maintain and sharpen their edge over competitors.   

While these services remain unchanged, consulting firms have been adapting to trends in the marketplace.  

What are the changing trends in global management consulting? 

 Engagement with market research companies   

There is a need for strategic partnerships with market research companies like Gartner and Forrester to reduce the turnaround time in gathering data and arriving at strategic decisions. 

Involvement in technology   

With the fast changes in technology, a global management consulting firm needs to keep itself up-to-date, especially with automated consulting functions like research, modeling, and analysis.  

Technical skills are acquired by constant training and hiring talent who are already proficient in these skills.   

Consulting firms are also increasing their presence in social media by giving out useful content to market their services. Moreover, they are also monitoring competitor consulting firms. 

Online collaboration with stakeholders 

With consultants distributed among many countries, online platforms are the channels used for consultations. Collaborating among experts in real-time is the best approach to timely solutions. 

The “virtual office” is also becoming the norm to reduce costs and to increase mobility. With the office structure kept in the cloud, a global management consulting firm can depend on contract-based consultants. 

Reduction in costs 

Along with globalization, buyers can choose freelance or per-transaction consulting services to reduce consulting costs. Depending on the buyer’s business, long-term consultancy contracts may be more expensive to maintain. 

Under the growing gig economy, clients choose only the services they need and terminate services when they no longer need it. Impacted are long-term relationships with the client since projects are mostly short-term or project-based. 

Onsite versus offshore 

Buyers prefer having onsite consultants over offshore ones for better exposure to them. 

Addressing customer expectations 

The consultancy-client relationship is also changing.  

 A single global management consulting firm might not have the full range of services required by some clients. Therefore, there is a move towards hiring multiple consulting firms with their specific niche specialties and collaborating. More firms are partnering with other specialists to offer a complete range of services. 

There is also a trend towards crowdsourcing. On a smaller scale, a group of freelancers and consulting firms collaborate online to provide solutions to a client. 

To provide the best services to clients, management consulting firms need to remain flexible to changes. As philosopher Heraclitus quotes, “There is nothing permanent except change.”