In its beginnings, Strategy Consulting was about defining strategy. Then, its heyday was about implementing that strategy. Today, it's about effecting real strategic change. The Strategy Consulting of tomorrow? Well, it depends who you talk to… and who you believe.
By Eric Krell
The leader of the past knew how to tell. The leader of the future will know how to ask.
—Peter Drucker
A strategy delineates a territory in which a company seeks to be unique.
—Michael Porter
The success of any business strategy hinges on its distinctiveness. The success of strategy consulting depends on the uniqueness as well as the length of one's perspective.
When weighing in on the state of strategy consulting, partners and executives at top firms tend to focus more on the short term: market share gains; optimism regarding global expansion, and the perennial need to access and nurture talent. Former partners and industry observers—a group whose members typically share more candid observations regarding the rarefied discipline's challenges and opportunities—tend to raise longer-term questions:
- How can strategy firms overcome cultural differences and other obstacles in order to build highly sustainable businesses in Asia?
- How can strategy consultants help clients restore trust not only in their companies, but also in their clients' marketplaces?
- How can strategy firms sustain their price points when competing against larger consulting houses with expanding strategy capabilities?
- How can new and untraditional consulting skill sets be integrated into highly traditional strategy-consulting cultures?
- How can firms return to the days of bolder strategies and bigger wins?
Tough questions almost always present consultants with challenges and opportunities, including those that some firms are harvesting while enjoying growth mode right now. "Despite the difficult macroeconomic cycle, the demand for strategy consulting continues to grow globally," reports Olivier Marchal, regional managing director, EMEA, for Bain & Company. "This is driven by the increasing complexity of demands and constraints faced by clients, as well as by the accelerating pace of change in the global economy."
One of these changes qualifies as historic. "The growth of the consuming class in emerging markets is one of the biggest economic shifts ever," notes David Court, a Senior Partner in McKinsey's Dallas office and leader of the firm's functional practices, "and it will require companies to change their ways of doing business."
This complexity, change and uncertainty act as a double-edged sword; the underlying forces behind these conditions—global technology connectedness, the shift of economic might to Asia and political and regulatory distrust in much of the West—also are exerting a rising need for fundamental changes to how strategy consulting is practiced. Although strategy consultants and observers have differing views on these changes, this much seems assured: future client collaborations are likely to be highly unique compared to past consulting-client relationships
"Today, strategy consulting is all about working with the client," says Knut Haanaes, the worldwide leader of the Boston Consulting Group's strategy practice. "The relationship centers on collaboration, and it really is a joint model. If you go back in time, strategy consulting was much more a matter of working for the client."
Zoom forward a few years, and the number and types of players involved in consultant-client collaborations may increase dramatically, notes Bill Matassoni, a retired McKinsey and BCG partner as well as the founder and CEO of The Glass House Group, which specializes in branding and positioning for professional services firms.
Matassoni describes a need for more "win-win" approaches in numerous industries. For example, imagine a new blockbuster drug that does not require years of expensive regulatory hurdles to be cleared and does not drain patients' savings accounts. "Right now the [consulting-client] room is very small," he says, noting that strategy consultants will need to engage in broader and more complex forms of relationship-building and problem-solving.
An important question for strategy consultants, Matassoni says, is this: "Can you conduct strategy in an environment where you're not only dealing with individual clients, but you're also dealing with several institutional stakeholders?"
Evolving Strategy
The traditional definition of strategy consulting applies to a shrinking amount of work—in large part due to strategy consulting's success during the past several decades.
Today, many client companies "have strong strategy departments themselves, often populated with former strategy consultants," notes Martin Fabel, a Partner with A.T. Kearney and Global Head of the firm's strategy, marketing and sales practice.
Formal internal strategy groups
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