Emerging trends in consulting in the digital era

Emerging digital trends in consulting

August 2013Victor Jiang

Started first consulting company in Australia at age 23

Took it to Europe and worked across UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands etc for 8+ years

Worked with the 5 largest global consultancies; 35 of the Fortune 50 as client companies

Ran IBM’s second largest enterprise-data-management business

outside of Wall St – the London banking and financial markets BU (delivering 410% revenue against target during the Global Financial Crisis)

Ran biz-dev at IBM’s Business Analytics and Optimization GBS practice in Australia. It grew 200% within 12 months.

victor@skillsapien.com

A short bioBackground:

Over 50% of professional services will be booked via online channels within 5-7 years1 ”

A Bold Prediction

Global Mega Trends

Web 2.0:

Me centric

web

The next 10 years:

Web 2.0: mass personal connectivity?– (rise of social networks; the web centered around “me”)

Web 3.0: mass customization?? (incl. services) Already seeing this – first with Dell, now “growth hacking” behavioural-driven advertising at FB, Yahoo, LinkedIn

Intrepreting the Trends

Big data analytics will enable, and indeed, drive this

More organic networks

Portals will become Platforms

Those who don’t catch-up will be left behind

The next 10 years will see the rise of Online Reputation Management ”

Bold Prediction #2

Tsunami of Change

Where’s the wave?

Traditional services industries knows it has to adapt & change

Many – including senior partners at AmLaw100 firms and other big firms – are feeling the “tsunami” about to be awash in their industries

They should.

Refer:Legal: AxiomLaw, ClearSpires, VirtualLawNetwork, LegalForce, Rocket Lawyer, Trademarkia

IT Outsourcing: Elance, Odesk, Freelancer

Medical: ZocDoc, RateADoctor

Travel and hospitality: TripAdvisor

Localised SMB: Yelp, Angie’s List, ServiceSeeking, TrueLocal, YourMechanic

Yet…

Is time really = money???

In today’s consulting world:

- Can be sold in sub-seconds- Traded 24x7, globally- Valued through established ratings

agencies and brokers- Supply & demand publicly tracked and

instantly visible- Hedged via futures/derivatives

- Can NOT be sold easily in days, or even weeks!

- Traded Mon-Fri (9-5), locally- Can NOT be easily valued- Demand and supply NOT publicly

tracked – NO visibility- Currently NOT hedged through any

futures or derivatives

Compare 2 Assets

A corporate bond: A consultant’s time:

Why?

Visibility

No independent ratings / comparison platform

And:

Mainly used for lead-sourcing

Not marketplaces for services

Quickest race to the bottom

Best suited to offshoring

High attrition (on both sides)

No in-depth matching

No scheduling/booking

No platform for trading

But:

Expertise Sites:

Freelancing sites:

Social networks:

Skill buyers and sellers have resorted to:

Current Attempts to Solve the Problem

Utilization Rate

Sales Cycle

Profitability / Break-even point

Profit

Loss

Current Ideal

Also, none of them are addressing…

The Utilization Vicious Cycle

The “Utilization Lag”:

Given a client’s first search nowadays is…

You’d want…

Featured ExpertScalability;

Instant Reach;

Autonomy

- Contextually relevant;

- Keyword-sensitive ads

Then you’d want that link to lead to something like …

Make all buying decision criteria visibly met:

Have a way to…

Provide feedback loop via service scoring / rating

Credentials

Reputation

Availability

Pricing

Have exposure while you sleep!

Soon, pricing of professional services will fluctuate in real-time, like airline tickets or hotel rooms ”

Bold Prediction #3

Transparency transforms pricing.

Such online platforms exists There will be more and more of

them Utilize them, leverage them

In conclusion

And…

Differentiate. Differentiate. Differentiate.

My advice:

Leverage “gated business communities”

Constantly increase & improve your online exposure!

(because a tidal change is coming!)

Victor JiangFounder, CEO | Skillsapienvictor@skillsapien.com | Cell: +1 415-283-6214 | Twitter: @victor_jiang | Skype: Skillsapien425 Broadway St, Redwood City, CA 94063, USA | 65 Hume St, Crows Nest, NSW 2065, Australia