The disruption curve will look like a hockey stick

It's not looking good for the high-touch, theatrical consulting industry. And you'll see where I'm going with this at the end of the post.

Ten years ago, I read a report published by McKinsey and Co. entitled “Disrupting the Consulting Industry.” Around the same time, Clay Christensen was talking about disrupting the University system…and he was a Harvard Business School professor!

I took note, perhaps because I’m just wired that way. Also, I’m not into the theatrics and stagecraft of traditional strategy consulting…which seemingly always needs to be redone 18-24 months later once everything changes - why don’t those strategies identify those changes and suggest countermeasures? Good question, if I do say so myself.

“Tomorrow's consulting industry will need to look and feel very different from the one we know today. For firms to thrive, they will need to find new ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors, to become more nimble and collaborative, and to enhance the value they deliver to clients while reducing their costs.”

“Disrupting the Consulting Industry” – McKinsey & Co. (2013)

I have an innovation mindset. And while the quote above is fairly vague from my current vantage point, it’s clear they had a window into the future, and it got me thinking way back then. My guess is that we don’t see people taking action on these predictions because there is a lack of clarity. We sense the threat, but we can’t articulated it in enough detail, or through the problem-solving proper lens. I also believe that anyone with common sense could’ve made the same prediction, possibly even more than 10 years ago.

We can view the world through a different lens, a better lens, an accessible lens. Even then, many won’t want to do that, because it upsets their current apple cart.

Let’s start by stating what I’ve always thought was obvious…maybe you disagree...

Companies don’t want strategy consulting engagements. They want an actionable, long-term growth plan.

Does your consulting engagement provide that? I see case studies, but is anyone putting long-term tracking mechanisms in place to ensure that it actually worked? No, they’re not.

People want the result, not the activity. So, let’s break this conversation down into three basic parts:

1. Consulting projects are too invasive and take too long. Most executives will tell you time is of the essence. What if there were a way to get to the critical answers faster?

2. Consulting is too expensive for most companies. If there were a way to get to the outcomes less expensively, would more companies invest in it?

3. The accuracy and durability of consulting is questionable. If there were a way to create forward-looking, precise, and actionable datasets that could be used to ask and answer questions for years to come, would more companies invest in it?

h/t Simon Wardley - Strategy Maps

It appears that consulting firms believe they can continue to operate like they’ve always operated, which means they have their heads in the sand. Their clients - and more importantly their non-clients - are telling them they want to get to the outcomes faster, less expensively, with more precision…and with scale. However, their clients don’t understand how that can happen, they’re simply applying downward pressure on price, which means smaller teams and fewer activities - they are marching you toward commoditization as you continue the theatrics that were once valued.

What they should be doing is finding a new genesis that has more value because it’s precise (so they get it right), it’s less expensive (so they can solve more problems), it’s scalable (so it grows with their business), and it’s fast (so time to value shrinks). If we were looking at the market as “Companies Who Are Trying to Grow Profitably” instead of “Companies Who Want Strategy Projects” we might have made some progress by now. Instead, we might see a rapid decline in those profit models while the egos remain in the stratosphere.

If you follow my blog, you already know part of the puzzle has been solved. Research and modeling that took weeks or months with teams can now be done in hours with a single analyst that has developed AI prompting skills. I know that in my modeling for innovation work, I’ve eliminated significant time and cost on the qualitative front end, and strides are being made to the same dimension on the quantitative side as well as the data analysis. Imagine an innovation center-of-excellence with an insights factory on autopilot. It’s coming.

Imagine the conversations you could have with executives before they even sign a proposal. They could be conversations fueled by insights that no one else has, because you were able to beat them to the punch. So instead months and months of strategy projects, you can get to the implementation, which is generally far more valuable to a consulting firm. If you don’t this first, a competitor will - and it may not look like a traditional competitor. In fact, I’m betting on that.

McKinsey got it right conceptually. They didn’t have all of the details, but they weren’t stuck with a myopic definition of market, and they knew something was going to have to change. Similar firms did not take heed. What’s coming is going to come fast now. The pieces of the new puzzle are falling into place. Are you going to let your new competitors frame the puzzle first?

Other News

How many of you are struggling to model Jobs in a comprehensive and accurate way? Have you fielded surveys that didn’t result in the data you had hoped for? What if I could generate a catalog of content that surpasses anything you get from a consulting engagement that costs mid-six-figures for a mere fraction of the cost? What if the results would be even better?

I know a lot of people that have gotten caught up in the analysis paralysis of frameworks to the point where nothing gets done. You have the same questions to answer that any business has, but you don’t have the same budget or the time. What if I could solve that problem for you?

1. Qualitative Research that costs $ and not $$$ - we’ll build a custom Jobs-to-be-Done catalog like you’ve never seen before in a few days

2. Quantitative Research and Data Modeling that costs $ and not $$$$ - we’ll construct and field a survey and pull the results into a data model.

3. Analysis and Strategy Formulation that costs $ and not $$$$$ - we’ll answer your key research questions, and show you new ways to analyze Jobs-to-be-Done data like no one else - seriously, no one else!

All of it done together can be completed in weeks, and not months, quarters, or years. And done with budgets that are more inline with small and medium-sized companies or individual training budgets, not just the Fortune 500 marketing budgets. Simply put, we can do those studies cheaper and better.

As highly experienced Jobs-to-be-Done practitioners, we view markets differently…companies that are looking for growth and profitability is the market, not just Fortune 500 companies that have large market research budgets.

More to come on this, but I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below, or the chat group associated with this post. Would you rather get the research done, or become a Jobs-to-be-Done process expert? 👇

P.S. I turned on the ability for readers to start chat threads which you can do in the Substack app. You can find the link to install the app here. This won’t be like Twitter, it will be 100% about JTBD, or your questions, experiences, or just to make connections in the community of practitioners.

Have a great weekend!