Friday 26th Oct, 2018
By Julie Ahadi.
In a break to the norm, and to give ourselves a rest from barking on about digital, we thought it might be interesting to look at one of the major standout non-trends unearthed by our 2018 Australia Consulting Market report*: the flatlining and blink-and-you-may-miss-it performance of people (HR) firms. And it’s pretty dire.
Claiming just 1% of market share, it’s abundantly clear that traditional HR firms haven’t quite managed to acquire the agility needed to outmanoeuvre the Big Four and strategy firms—and anyone else with a killer instinct—to keep pace with the times and remain relevant.
Why? Well, both in Australia and around the world, HR consulting has seen relatively slow growth in recent years, as clients’ need for support in this area has either been piecemeal or generally just lower down the list than, well, pretty much anything else you can think of.
Friday 28th Sep, 2018
By Alison Huntington.
I recently interviewed a consultant who was telling me about a digital transformation programme he’d worked on with one of Britain’s police forces. As part of the programme, each front-line officer was given a tablet to replace the traditional policeman’s notebook. The technology would mean accurate digital records, fewer hours lost to paperwork, the ability to update cases on the go, and myriad other benefits. Except that it didn’t. The consultant went out on the beat one day and watched as an officer took out his tablet … and proceeded to use it as a clipboard to lean his paper notebook against while he jotted down his notes with an old-fashioned biro.
It’s just one of many examples that illustrate how the success of transformation depends on people, not just new technology. So what do HR clients—the people in charge of the people—make of the consultants trying to help them?
Thursday 12th Apr, 2018
By Zoë Stumpf.
I’m a big fan of Germany. That’s probably just as it should be: My surname is German, as are (perhaps more importantly) some members of my family. It’s also hard not to have huge admiration for a country that keeps all its best wines purely for domestic consumption. However, my respect for German attitudes has grown even further on the back of research that we conducted recently for our DACH report on trends and growth in the German, Austrian, and Swiss consulting market.
The reason for my ever-growing enthusiasm for all things German is that it turns out that quite a number of senior German consultants feel that they need to lead the debate about the impact of robotics and AI on the future workforce. I know that this is the topic of many news stories the world over, with widespread concern about the potential disappearance of a number of white-collar jobs, and those of us with children trying to steer them towards future-proofed careers (apparently hairdressing is a safe bet).
Thursday 27th Apr, 2017
By Fiona Czerniawska.
Some will say they had it coming.
As a group, chief HR officers and HR directors have never had a particularly comfortable seat at the corporate table. Outgunned by COOs, CFOs, and CIOs, most have found it difficult to make their voices heard; usually unable to measure the impact of what they do, they’ve often been consigned to the margins of decision-making. Now, to make that worse, much of what the HR function does is being swallowed up by shared services centres—and that’s just a prelude to complete digitisation. Employees can do increasing amounts of admin themselves, and they have a greater incentive to ensure personal information is accurate and up-to-date. Sifting through candidates for recruitment can be done by algorithms. Who needs HR anymore?
Sunday 17th Jan, 2016
By Fiona Czerniawska Consultants are notoriously optimistic. Years ago, I had the partner I was working for up against a wall (metaphorically speaking, you understand), when he overused the phrase, “every problem is an opportunity”. “This is just a problem,” I said, “I’ve looked everywhere for the opportunity in it, and there isn’t one.”
Monday 28th Sep, 2015
By Fiona Czerniawska It’s just the latest deal in a wave of consolidation that’s been washing over HR consulting for a decade or more – but it’s one that could signal a shift in the market.
Thursday 2nd Jul, 2015
By Alison Huntington The ‘bromance’ may be a fading Hollywood genre, but it’s alive and well in the world of consulting. Having been kindly invited to several analyst days with consulting firms, it struck me that the clients wheeled out to sing a firm’s praises are always men. And then I noticed that it’s always men introducing them. No, I lie – I heard one female partner speak at a tech firm once, and her specialism was (you guessed it) HR.
Friday 12th Oct, 2012
This is the third in our series of blogs looking at the prospects for different segments within the consulting industry. One of the striking things about HR consulting firms from a client’s point of view is that there aren’t many of them. With the services of the big firms increasingly seen to be commoditised and the genuine specialists hard to find, this €1.1 billion segment of the consulting industry isn’t growing.
Monday 19th Mar, 2012
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.
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