The Future of the Firm

Thought leadership is a crucial part of the brand-building strategy of the modern professional services firm. And over the past year and a half, it’s taken on a new level of importance; for many clients, it has played a vital role in helping them successfully overcome the challenges of the pandemic. On this episode, we’re joined by Francis Hintermann, the Global Managing Director of Accenture Research, to discuss what firms can do if they want to maximise the impact of the content they produce, and ensure it accurately reflects the priorities of their clients.

As issues of racial justice have taken on a new level of importance in the public consciousness, consulting firms have become more aware of the need to confront the sector's historical failings. In this episode, we’re joined by Ekow Sanni-Thomas, founder of Inside Voices, a platform dedicated to holding companies accountable for their diversity pledges. We discuss the practical steps that consultants can take if they want to transform their firms into truly anti-racist organisations. 

Over the past few years, the boundaries between freelancers and established consulting firms have become a lot more porous than they used to be. Spurred on by a desire to create more flexible resourcing models, large consulting firms have adopted a much more proactive approach to bringing freelancers into the delivery of their client engagements. And that’s been facilitated, in part, by the arrival of a new generation of “talent-on-demand" platforms, which have made it easier than ever before to source and vet freelance consultants. So, on this episode of the podcast, we’re joined by Charlotte Gregson, Managing Director for the UK & US at COMATCH, in order to take a deep dive into the rapidly evolving world of freelance consulting—and what it all means for established professional services firms and their clients. 

In the modern consulting industry, it’s vital that firms understand how to help clients unlock the innovation potential within their organisations. Increasingly, clients aren’t just looking for consultants who know how to write a compelling PowerPoint deck; they want to find partners who can provide them with the practical support necessary to develop, launch and scale radically innovative products and services. In this episode of the podcast, we’re joined by Frazer Bennett, Chief Innovation Officer at PA Consulting, to discuss the role of innovation in today’s consulting sector. As well as looking at the longer-term trend of firms embracing their role as enablers of innovation, we’ll also be examining the extent to which COVID has pushed this topic up the agendas of clients, and the various ways in which firms have had to adjust their approaches to innovation in response to the rise of virtual working.   

Over the past twelve months, the global Black Lives Matter movement has forced businesses in every industry to ask themselves some hard questions about their track record on issues of diversity and inclusion. For the consulting sector, these questions feel particularly pertinent, given the way in which a firm’s success is directly rooted in the human capital it has access to. On this episode of the podcast we’re joined by Susan Haseley—Executive Vice President at Protiviti and the firm’s Global Diversity and Inclusion Leader—to examine this topic in more detail. We explore why—from a commercial and ethical standpoint—consultants ought to care about diversity and inclusion, and we examine what specific steps firms can take to transform themselves into more diverse organisations. 

Whether you’re a leader within a consulting firm or a consultant who advises clients on questions about management and leadership, there’s a good chance you’ve spent a lot of time over the last year thinking about the topic of employee engagement. Engagement might not be a new concept, either for consultants or their clients, but it is one that feels more relevant right now than ever. The pandemic has, after all, had a profound impact on the relationship between leaders and their workforces. So, on this episode, we’re joined by Pamela Hackett—CEO of consulting firm Proudfoot and author of “Manage to Engage” —as we take a deep dive into the world of engagement. We’ll look at what it takes to build an engaged workforce, and we’ll explore the role that consulting firms can play in helping clients take their first steps along that journey. 

Since the very beginning of the pandemic, there was talk in both the private and public sector about the need to “build back better” and ensure a “green recovery” from COVID-19. Now that we’re starting to get a better sense of what a post-COVID future could look like, clients are asking themselves tough questions about what, exactly, a green recovery will mean in practice—and how to balance competing priorities at this critical moment in time. In this episode, we revisit the topic of sustainability; and more specifically, we examine the way in which client demand for sustainability services has started to reshape the competitive dynamics of the consulting sector. To discuss this topic, we’re joined by Dame Jo da Silva and Carol Lemmens from Arup—the firm’s Global Sustainable Development Director and Global Advisory Services Leader, respectively. 

Digital transformation has been a critically important driver in the growth of consulting spend over the past decade. And customer experience has been one of the areas where digital transformation has played the greatest role in unlocking new opportunities for clients. Any business needs to be able to meet its customers where they are; so, as consumers have become more digitally savvy, businesses have been forced to develop their own digital capabilities accordingly. On this episode of the podcast, we’re joined by Quinton Pienaar—PwC's EMEA Customer Transformation Leader—to discuss how firms can support their clients’ customer transformation journeys, particularly in the context of the changes to consumer behaviour caused by the pandemic. 

M&A is a crucial engine of growth for large consulting firms. But it also holds the potential to fundamentally reshape the parameters of the industry and the axes along which firms compete with one another; over the past few years, there have been a number of high profile examples of firms buying up companies from outside the sector in an effort to diversify their service portfolios and, in some cases, create entirely new customer propositions. Conversely, there have also been cases of companies from outside the sector using well-placed acquisitions as a way of gaining a foothold within consulting. In this episode, we’re joined by Daniel Schwartmann—Accenture’s Managing Director responsible for inorganic growth activities across their global strategy and consulting business—to discuss what M&A activity today can tell us about the future of the industry. 

Historically, consulting firms haven’t always been seen as attractive investment vehicles for private equity. As organisations whose success depends primarily on their human capital, consulting firms can be harder to properly value than many other businesses. And the nature of project-based work can lead to unpredictable cashflows—not something that many investors are looking for. But recently, something seems to have changed; private equity investors are taking a closer look at the sector, and that’s led to a number of high profile deals in the past few years. In this episode, we’re joined by Richard Holden—a partner at the investment bank Alantra—to explore the reasons behind that shift, and what it will mean for the future of consulting.