According to the consulting.uk industry website, market growth for Management Consultancies is set to continue healthy through 2017/18, with ongoing and increasing demand for expert consulting services. However, Source Global Research’s study identified the Big Four firms outperformed the market most strongly. Where does that leave smaller and medium sized management consulting practices and why is their growth lagging?

One factor is the rising demand for digital transformation consultancy.

As digital service, operational and sales & marketing models become the norm for ambitious and growing businesses across most sectors, there’s a strong appetite for consulting expertise in digital planning and delivering technology-based change at pace.

In this context, it’s likely that the credibility and technology investment of the Big Four are supporting their outperformance. Businesses choose consulting partners who have demonstrated their commitment to a digital way of working. Larger consultancy firms have the reach to invest in sophisticated customer management, sales & marketing and service solutions, which their customers benefit from every day, in contact, information and service quality.

There’s a double whammy. Because they have an established digital marketing strategy and prolific multi-channel campaigns in place, they’re in a stronger position than ever to communicate their digital expertise and use their database to target the best customer opportunities.

How can smaller consulting firms compete?

It’s essential to invest in digital technology, both to show customers that you’re abreast of market technology trends and to develop your client relationships, marketing campaigns and sales through the multiple channels your customers want to use today. This, in turn, brings you better data and insight for winning business planning and development.

The challenge is finding a cost-effective, scalable digital application that you can benefit from rapidly. For small and medium size consultancies, your agility and lean organisation is an advantage here. It’s possible to scope and deploy an effective CRM solution in a matter of weeks, rather than the years a corporate IT project can take for management consultancy firms with a vast headcount.

Touchstone, work with a wide range of consulting firms to help them gain maximum strategic value from their digital business applications.