Darwinism gig economy hits management consulting.

…and potential in professional service education content

Traditional management consulting “strategy” problem-solving via powerpoint is changing, more so as the gig economy hits the industry.

With digital players easily acquiring both supply & demand-end of consulting via platforms such as facebook, the fundamental shift from swarms of consultants organizing neat decks to actually driving impact is here — and it’s becoming more apparent the emperor wears no clothes.

That was a mouthful.

Services such as GLG and Alphasights were forerunners but rather niche / short advisory consultation, and now there’s a ton of up & coming consulting firms, or organic “tribes” — loosely connected project members who work on an aspect of a project together, usually working on more than 1 project.

So with this change, who will be the winners / losers?

We are in an age of the disruption of professional services, and the main skillset is driving impact regardless of client industry, tools, infrastructure — meaning the growth in demand for expertise in AI, data science, engineers, competent marketers…and fewer generalists.

Darwinian gig economy — those with proven track record of driving actual impact will thrive in this gig economy. As with any industry, a small but selected talent will reap most of the upside even as “partners” who can acquire projects and use consulting firms as vendors to help execute their projects will.

As gig consultants grow in number, this influx will lead to the commoditization of consulting skillsets — as we saw with drivers, writers, graphic designers, etc.

Traditional strategy projects will still exit, but within a bubble created circa 1970s.

Top tier consultants will see their billables continue to grow, as the mass consultants suffer from depreciation of a commoditized product…once the veil of neat powerpoint are gone.

So, what happens next?

Here in lies a potential business chance — education.
Market for professional service education of gig and mass consultants will grow, as skillset will be linked directly to billables and the variety of projects.

Also, as gig-consulting becomes more of a standard, companies will potentially outsource its new-grad employee education to vendors, as their profits wear too thin to educate themselves. As for the masses, they will opt for updating their knowledge themselves through paid content.

Anyone with thoughts or insights on this matter — let’s chat.

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Lastly, a note –

As an extension of my consulting services, founding Inazuma Digital KK this month.

Feel free to reach out in terms of digital business building — subscription service building and web service building, in addition to digital marketing consultation.

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Jo