Sonny Singh, senior vice president of Oracle's Products and Industries Business Unit, says resource management is the biggest issue facing consulting firms today. And as the driver of Oracle's go-to-market strategy in the business consultant unit—and as a former vice president of Oracle Consulting—Singh knows a thing or two about what makes consultants tick. Joe Kornik, Consulting magazine's editor-in-chief, sat down with Singh to discuss the industry's biggest challenges. Consulting: So, what's keeping consultants up at night?
Singh: The big mantra over the last five to ten years has been the global delivery model. Every consulting firm was caught trying to build up their own global delivery capabilities so they could compete in the new economic framework that evolved as a result of low-cost labor pools entering the marketplace. But now I think the Holy Grail for the future is around non-linear growth, which is growth in revenue that's not proportionate to head count. A classical services model is very dependent on generating x dollars per head on revenue. If I need ten times the revenue, then I need ten more people. That's the traditional way to increase revenue in consulting firms, but I don't think that's sustainable anymore.
Consulting: What's the solution?
Singh: When I talk to CEOs and COOs of consulting firms, this is really top of mind for them. It boils down to a couple of things. The first one is increasing yield from existing customers. They've all invested heavily in building client relationships, and now they have get into new businesses to serve those same clients. If they're an IT provider, they might now be offering business process outsourcing services. The other element of this is getting into newer markets to drive non-linear growth. Traditionally, a lot of the larger firms have been focused on the big companies, and now they are finding that a lot more of the opportunities for them are happening a little more down market. Firms can no longer focus on the top 1,000 companies, but many are discovering that they should be looking more mid-market. The dynamics of that market are very different. The eco-systems are different, the economics are different and the business can be more regional in nature.
And the last piece is focus on their own people—retaining and developing their highest quality people. That's become a huge issue for this industry, and it's an industry that's filled with turnover. There isn't a lot of loyalty anymore to their firm and people move around. A lot of firms are trying to figure out how best to manage these folks.
Consulting: Right, so how much are firms struggling with their internal resource management?
Singh: It's a huge issue. We hold regular meetings with consulting firms—we call them industry strategy councils—to help give [Oracle] insight into our customer's priorities. We have about ten large members in the council, and these meetings with them help guide Oracle's investments and product evolution in the consulting space. At our last meeting, the top priority by far was what they called "strategic workforce management." That means not only hiring and developing the right talent, but also making sure that the talent is being aligned correctly within the firm.
Consulting: And that could contribute to a firm's non-linear growth?
Singh: Absolutely. Aligning the right resources with the right projects is very important, particularly if firms begin to go down market where there is zero tolerance for any cost overrun or error. The demand for internal precision is increasing. Before this role, I was with Oracle Consulting for 12 years, and I know how critical it is to match the talent to the project. For most firms, it's now a must have instead of a nice to have.
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