We’ve all heard the joke about the consultant who takes your watch then charges to tell you the time. But did you know, the Australian consulting industry generated $5bn last year, grew by over 7% and employed over 130,00 people? It should therefore be asked what is the future of consulting in Australia? More and more, consulting companies are being asked to demonstrate real value. The days of resting on reputation and past victories are over.
Organisations are seeking expertise that can deliver on the promise of digitisation. Omni channels, transitioning to the cloud, accessing big data and leveraging social media are no longer optional. These are becoming the key drivers to competitive advantage and to meeting the most minimum expectations of customers in the private sector and of governments and citizens in the public sector.
A common question we are asked is:
How do we cope with all this change and when does transformation stop?
Our view on this is simple.
Transformation never stops and the key to coping with change is building organisational resilience.
Choosing the right partner to help build resilience isn’t easy. For many organisations it’s all about experience and capability, while for others it comes down to price. For us, successful engagements require a strong alignment between the consultant and the client on both goals and values. We find that a good consultant can be defined as much by what they choose not to do, as what they do.
In their recent book, The Big Four the authors (Stuart Kells and Ian Gow) describe the history of the auditing and consulting industries and ask what is its future? They recognise the important role this industry has played for more than six hundred years. They also suggest that the resilience of the partnership model is being tested.
As part of a global organisation, PM-Partners understands both the power and the fragility of reputation. We know that resilience is key to protecting reputation and that brand is the foundation to a strong future. We also know that sometimes your reputation is only ‘as good as your last game’.
Churchill once said, “to improve is to change, so to be perfect you must change often”. Perhaps perfection might be a slight overreach (at least for some of us) but one thing is for sure: there’s bound to be more change – and lots of it!
Does your organisation require assistance executing your business transformation? Contact us today on 1300 70 13 14.
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