Emerging digital trends in consulting

August 2013Victor Jiang

Started first consulting company in Australia at age 23

Took it to Europe and worked across UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands etc for 8+ years

Worked with the 5 largest global consultancies; 35 of the Fortune 50 as client companies

Ran IBM’s second largest enterprise-data-management business

outside of Wall St – the London banking and financial markets BU (delivering 410% revenue against target during the Global Financial Crisis)

Ran biz-dev at IBM’s Business Analytics and Optimization GBS practice in Australia. It grew 200% within 12 months.

victor@skillsapien.com

A short bioBackground:

Over 50% of professional services will be booked via online channels within 5-7 years1 ”

A Bold Prediction

Global Mega Trends

Web 2.0:

Me centric

web

The next 10 years:

Web 2.0: mass personal connectivity?– (rise of social networks; the web centered around “me”)

Web 3.0: mass customization?? (incl. services) Already seeing this – first with Dell, now “growth hacking” behavioural-driven advertising at FB, Yahoo, LinkedIn

Intrepreting the Trends

Big data analytics will enable, and indeed, drive this

More organic networks

Portals will become Platforms

Those who don’t catch-up will be left behind

The next 10 years will see the rise of Online Reputation Management ”

Bold Prediction #2

Tsunami of Change

Where’s the wave?

Traditional services industries knows it has to adapt & change

Many – including senior partners at AmLaw100 firms and other big firms – are feeling the “tsunami” about to be awash in their industries

They should.

Refer:Legal: AxiomLaw, ClearSpires, VirtualLawNetwork, LegalForce, Rocket Lawyer, Trademarkia

IT Outsourcing: Elance, Odesk, Freelancer

Medical: ZocDoc, RateADoctor

Travel and hospitality: TripAdvisor

Localised SMB: Yelp, Angie’s List, ServiceSeeking, TrueLocal, YourMechanic

Yet…

Is time really = money???

In today’s consulting world:

- Can be sold in sub-seconds- Traded 24x7, globally- Valued through established ratings

agencies and brokers- Supply & demand publicly tracked and

instantly visible- Hedged via futures/derivatives

- Can NOT be sold easily in days, or even weeks!

- Traded Mon-Fri (9-5), locally- Can NOT be easily valued- Demand and supply NOT publicly

tracked – NO visibility- Currently NOT hedged through any

futures or derivatives

Compare 2 Assets

A corporate bond: A consultant’s time:

Why?

Visibility

No independent ratings / comparison platform

And:

Mainly used for lead-sourcing

Not marketplaces for services

Quickest race to the bottom

Best suited to offshoring

High attrition (on both sides)

No in-depth matching

No scheduling/booking

No platform for trading

But:

Expertise Sites:

Freelancing sites:

Social networks:

Skill buyers and sellers have resorted to:

Current Attempts to Solve the Problem

Utilization Rate

Sales Cycle

Profitability / Break-even point

Profit

Loss

Current Ideal

Also, none of them are addressing…

The Utilization Vicious Cycle

The “Utilization Lag”:

Given a client’s first search nowadays is…

You’d want…

Featured ExpertScalability;

Instant Reach;

Autonomy

- Contextually relevant;

- Keyword-sensitive ads

Then you’d want that link to lead to something like …

Make all buying decision criteria visibly met:

Have a way to…

Provide feedback loop via service scoring / rating

Credentials

Reputation

Availability

Pricing

Have exposure while you sleep!

Soon, pricing of professional services will fluctuate in real-time, like airline tickets or hotel rooms ”

Bold Prediction #3

Transparency transforms pricing.

Such online platforms exists There will be more and more of

them Utilize them, leverage them

In conclusion

And…

Differentiate. Differentiate. Differentiate.

My advice:

Leverage “gated business communities”

Constantly increase & improve your online exposure!

(because a tidal change is coming!)

Victor JiangFounder, CEO | Skillsapienvictor@skillsapien.com | Cell: +1 415-283-6214 | Twitter: @victor_jiang | Skype: Skillsapien425 Broadway St, Redwood City, CA 94063, USA | 65 Hume St, Crows Nest, NSW 2065, Australia