Business model

A previous post, about the impact consultant-managers could have on the consulting industry, has had me thinking about what clients lack.

Consulting firms call it staff substitution; clients call it contingent labour. Some people say contracting; others, interim management.

Our latest survey of buying trends among clients has a curious anomaly in it.
When we ask people which consulting services they’re planning to purchase, we get a broadly, though not massively, positive response. Technology is high on the agenda as organisations move beyond the cost-cutting and regulatory change that dominated the consulting industry during the recession and its immediate aftermath. Outsourcing consulting, too, appears to be making something of a comeback after two very lacklustre years.