As a whole, the consulting firms did not rate the intellectual capital they marketed very highly. In fact, 43 percent said that their IC was worse or no better than their competition’s. For every idea like reengineering that becomes a blockbuster consulting concept, hundreds of consulting ideas are forgotten soon after the article or book about them hits the market.

Why? This is the most important question consulting firms should be asking about the way they develop and market their intellectual capital. Consulting firms, of course, aren’t in the business of publishing journals, staging conferences, or churning out books. They invest in such activities only if they generate business leads and market awareness whose economic value exceeds the investments. Such investments can be substantial, and they often don’t pay off. A consulting firm can spend as much as $1 million to write and promote a book; millions of dollars to publish a quarterly management journal; and tens of thousands to stage a marketing event. And that’s only to market the ideas. Developing ideas can require millions more for conducting in-depth case study research, surveys, and extensive analysis.

But we also know that big ideas, marketed well, can generate returns far in excess of the investment in them. Our survey backs this up: The consulting firms with superior IC (we call this group the IC leaders) were much more likely than those with inferior IC (call them the IC laggards) to say that a number of key marketing activities were very effective in generating substantial market awareness and business leads (Exhibit 2).