Consultancy

Is This the End-game for Boutique Consultancies: Automated Expert Solutions?

As the AI revolution kicks-off, one of the most promising frontiers lies in multi-agentic systems – coordinated AI bots that replicate and enhance human workflows. While much attention has focused on large language models (LLMs) like GPT, boutique consultancies are well-positioned to lead the development of more capable systems. This seems perhaps like an odd […]

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Building the Best Leadership Team for an Exit

The capability of your leadership team is, in many ways, more important than your EBITDA when it comes to a sale. I have seen several sales of otherwise decent firms scuppered when the leadership team say ‘no’, leave, or hold the transaction hostage. My own research indicates that most buyers would put a strong, committed

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AI and Change Management in Professional Services: From ‘Change and Forget’, to ‘Change, and Change, and Change…..’

The rise of AI in Professional Services is a formidable challenge for HR and change managers, targeting the very essence of human expertise, trust, and judgment that traditionally define these fields. In many ways, AI is a continuation of a long history of technology-driven transformation, yet that process is one which professional services, with their

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Improving Your Consultancy’s Profit and Revenue Growth: A Case-study and Strategy

Shrinking in Order to Grow: A Case-study A few years ago, I was invited to join the advisory board (well, BE the advisory board) of a 43-person consultancy that was struggling with margin and revenue growth. They’d achieved their growth through the good looks and charm of the founder but had never really hit decent

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Sales Won’t Come from Cloning the Founder: Why the ‘Trusted Advisor’ Approach Has Limited Success in Boutique Consultancies

How Boutique Consulting Has Changed Founders of consulting firms often expect their senior consultants to replicate their own success as highly networked, trusted advisors. While this aspiration is understandable, it’s rarely realistic. The gap between expectation and reality is down to some structural shifts in how consulting careers are developed today, particularly in limited companies,

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When Leads Kick the Can: How to Overcome Prospect Indecision

For many consulting firms, one of the most frustrating hurdles is a client who seems ready to move forward but then hesitates, delays, or sends your proposal into a black hole of stakeholders. You’ve had all the right meetings, delivered a tailored solution, and yet months go by without a final decision. Here’s how you

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Boutique Consultancies vs Big Firms: The AI Advantage Explained

Do your employees trust your leadership? This will determine your success now more than ever. I completed my PhD 24 years ago, comparing the conditions for success between Total Quality Management (TQM) and Business Process Re-engineering (BPR). BPR typically involved senior managers working with consultants to redesign organisational processes based on new technology. This approach

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The New Pyramid: Leverage is Becoming More About AI, Not People

The traditional consulting pyramid—where a wide base of junior consultants supports a narrowing hierarchy up to partner level—has long been the backbone of the industry. It is the basis of the traditional leverage model where seniors sell in large numbers of juniors to generate the firm’s profits. However, in recent years, this structure has come

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Pricing services for consultancies: why value pricing rarely works.

There’s a lot of nonsense written about pricing which is based on zero evidence. The general advice from ‘gurus’ appears to be (i) raise your prices (ii) use value-based pricing. As we shall see, this is usually bad advice. Pricing isn’t everything. Margins are more important. Revenue is half the story of margins (along with

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Professional Services Automation for consultancy growth.

If, like me a few years ago, you have not heard of PSA, you may find the data and processes of your firm are a combination of spreadsheets, apps, Office documents, and a few storage platforms like Drive or DropBox. If you’re technologically minded, you may even have connected some of these with

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