Consultancy.uk – Croixstone

Management Consulting and 5 Trends Shaping Its Future

The first management consulting firm was launched in 1886 by Arthur Dehon Little in Boston, MA. More than 135 years later, there are megatrends (like any other industry) disrupting and shaping the future of the industry where Croixstone practices as a a boutique firm.

Rick Eager, Partner Emeritus at Arthur D. Little, recently shared five trends that he believes are key for consulting firms to embrace in order to successfully navigate the rapidly changing landscape.

These five trends include:

Success demands great senior-level involvement
Open consulting is key
More skin in the game
Connectors and navigators
Embracing new technology is vital

Learn more here via Consultancy.uk.

Disruption in Consulting

Traditional management consulting won’t be around in 20 years.

That’s the bold claim being made by Pat Lynes, a business transformation consultant and author of “The Interim Revolution.” Having interviewed over 100 corporate executives to gain insight into how businesses address change and perceive the management consulting industry, Pat believes our industry is a prime candidate for disruption. We agree. Learn more here.

Snapshot – U.S. Consulting Industry

So how big is the U.S. consulting industry?

According to data published in June 2016 by Consultancy.uk (an online platform for the advisory and consulting industry), the U.S. consulting industry (the world’s largest and most mature consulting segment), grew strongly last year at a healthy 8% to reach nearly $55 billion.

Given Croixstone Consulting’s home here in Charlotte, the nation’s 2nd largest financial market, it was no surprise to see that, once again, the Financial Services industry remains far and away the U.S. consulting market’s biggest spender. Banks and insurers, among others, spent nearly $14 billion on consultants in 2015, up 9% on last year, although the growth rate was slower than the year previous.

Other industries showed robust growth as well. Retail was the fastest growing sector, expanding 11% to approach $4 billion as retailers bolstered their digital investments in order to tap into the rise of e-commerce and omnichannel demands. Consulting to the public sector remains the poor relation of the industry, according to the researchers, with a 2.6% growth to $6 billion, as public sector investment sunk to the lowest level in over 60 years. The U.S. energy & resources consulting market grew by 5% to $7.3 billion, while pharma grew by a strong 10% to $1.7 billion, despite mounting pressures in the space, including an increasingly intense debate about drug pricing practices.

Learn more here.