Trends in Change Management Consulting

Change management consulting has lost none of its luster, despite research that continues to show the majority of change efforts fail to meet their strategic objectives. In fact, demand for change consulting has increased considerably since ALM’s analysis two years ago that estimated a growth CAGR of 5.0% in the five-year period from 2014 to 2018. Providers today say global revenues are growing by healthy double digits, and they expect demand to remain strong if not grow at a faster rate.

Such levels of provider confidence make sense in the context of the market’s demand curve, wherein many of the individual competencies that comprise change management are robust consulting markets of their own, e.g., digital strategy, communications, employee engagement, and leadership development. Furthermore, the trend in change consulting is towards bundling additional competencies as providers continue their shift towards digital professional service delivery. Consulting around data and analytics, experience design, and solutions development using emerging technologies (think artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics process automation) has become essential to a new value proposition for change management advanced by the leading providers.