A consultant marketplace is a marketplace that provides consultancy services for companies and organizations from different industry sectors. The consulting industry is immense and profitable, but digitization has led to some unprecedented developments and changes. Through all these, the prospects of consulting marketplace continue to look good since clients from all industries continue to require expert business advice.

Prospects of consulting marketplaces

To understand the prospects of consulting marketplaces, it may help to consider some of the trends that are affecting small, large, niche, and generalist consulting firms:

Increased digitization

With IT reshaping most industries, clients are increasingly in need of adjusting or changing their business strategies. They must also find the most practical and cost-effective ways of implementing their new plans. To get their business, consultants will need to be ten steps ahead. They must be swifter than their clients in monitoring the environment and adapting to the latest technological trends and must become knowledgeable enough to offer value-adding help and advice.

Dynamics of globalization

As more and more companies fall in line with the trend of globalization, consultants are also getting on the bandwagon and learning to cater to a global consultant marketplace. Companies are consulting them about their international subsidiaries, and consultants are attempting to provide consistent service by developing virtual teams and networks that are not constrained by location. Even the smaller consultancies may have people from around the world working for them.

Continuing education

The consultant marketplace is heavily reliant on information and the management of knowledge. To stay competitive in the face of the changing technology and business models, consultants must update their skill sets continually. They must use their newfound knowledge to innovate and develop solutions quickly for the new issues that their clients could encounter.

Recruiting for skills

When recruiting new talent, the focus in the consultant marketplace is likely to be more on the skills they possess than on the top-tier university from which they graduated. However, people with advanced educational qualifications may continue to have a career advantage since many employers still find it worthwhile to require a bachelor’s degree for basic job eligibility. Since candidates with the right skills and the right education might be in short order, companies could compete aggressively to hire and retain them. They might offer them incentives like higher salaries, four-day workweeks, or work-from-home options.

Growing polarization

There is likely to be a growing polarization between large consultancy companies and the small niche consultancies. The big players are likely to become aggressive and competitive about gaining maximum market share and power. They might expand the scope of their consultancy services from providing regular strategy consulting to covering change management, knowledge management, human resources management, global strategy development, and more. They might also move to acquire small and medium consultancies.

The smaller consultancies that remain independent may turn their focus toward niche specialization. That can allow them to stay relevant and compete in the consultant marketplace. However, they will need to be extra vigilant about monitoring trends and adapt as the market demand changes.

Automation and big data

Consulting firms may increasingly adopt and use big data analysis techniques, data mining, data modeling, and business automation processes to leverage business growth. Either that or get left behind since these technologies are gaining widespread acceptance across all industry sectors. A consultant’s inability to stay ahead of their clients in trends could spell career doom.

As this trend could reduce the labor-intensive nature of business consulting, the consultant might need to implement new business and operational strategies. For instance, some consulting firms might find it necessary to switch to a flat rate system instead of charging their clients by the hour.

Tips for consultants

Here are a few tips that consultants might want to take into account for improving their future business prospects:

• By making learning opportunities available to all their staff, consultancy firms can make maximum use of their available internal resources.

• Getting into the habit of innovating and developing solutions can help consultants stay on top of trends.

• Developing professional relationships with other small and big consultancy firms could foster cooperation and exchange of services and turn into a win-win alliance for all involved parties.