Envisioning the future client-consultant relationship

Abstract

The consulting industry is at the forefront of disruption (Parakala, 2015). Agile, more digital-driven competitors enter the consulting market (Nissen, 2017a, p. 33). Furthermore, clients are becoming more digital and seek more digital and agile consulting services. The company of this project, a professional service network, is part of this changing market. To answer to the changing client needs and to stay competitive, they need to rethink their way of their ‘traditional personnel-intensive ‘face-to-face’ delivery model of consulting’ (Bieler, 2017). And thus, they need to re-design their client relationship that serves the changing demands of their clients. An in-house product of this professional service network focuses on bringing their client relationship into the digital age. This project aims to deliver a product positioning and strategy for this in-house product to support the future client relationship. The project approach is both systemic (Jones, 2020) and iterative. This means the author has a system view on the future client relationship integrating multiple factors that are influencing this system. Furthermore, the author has committed to an iterative design approach involving company stakeholders throughout the research and design phases with the use of co-reflection (Yukawa, 2006). Thorough research on the future of consulting, in addition to internal interviews and three different co-reflection sessions with multiple stakeholders have lead to a design for a future client relationship: The future client relationship will be humanly digital. A relationship that is characterized by co-created touch-points and a digital infrastructure that facilitates the people of the firm to use their knowledge and experience to offer clients personalized services. Three different digital experiences are driving this humanly digital relationship: pro-active selling solutions, interactive project experiences and digital business solutions. Design reflection sessions with internal stakeholders suggest: the product should facilitate these three digital experiences and should be positioned as a client-experience expert. This project gives a view on a potential future for the digital client relationship. Moreover, it provides the client of this project with a strategy and future vision on how to position their in-house product in the future.