Supercharging consultancy in the age of AI

Illustration generated with AI assistance (OpenAI)

 The advent of AI and its deployment in the field of consultancy has many people believing that this industry and its professionals are at something of a crossroads. However, far from encouraging businesses to stop using the services of such professionals, AI actually helps them get better bang for their buck by combining technological abilities and human ingenuity and inventiveness to help them maximize productivity and truly fulfil their potential.

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The leading consultancies of the world are able to use generative AI as well as predictive artificial intelligence to allow their customers to strategically capitalise on strategic openings to transform their businesses and help them outperform themselves. They are able to help their clients get the most out of GenAI, allowing them to make paradigm redefining changes to important functions and come up with all-new business models.

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However, it is not just the large and established consultancy firms that stand to gain from AI. As a matter of fact, AI can help supercharge small firms and even solopreneurs, setting them up for incremental growth.

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Golden Age of Solopreneur Consultants

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While in the past, the consultancy business  was viewed as the sole preserve of the large legacy consultancy firms with exclusive access to the knowledge and experience that helped them become so valuable to their clients in the first place. The internet and AI have helped democratise access to such knowledge and experience, with more and more people being able to learn from the availability of a large number of case studies and well-trained language models, allowing them to become proficient business consultants. In fact, they will now be able to give the big firms a run for their money as they focus on value, rather than extended projects and fatter billing.

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In fact, lean and solopreneur management consultants can be better performers than legacy consultants, even when they don't have access to the resources commanded by the former.

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Don't become the type of consultant AI will replace

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There is a growing concern with some legitimate basis that AI will replace consultants. That fear may be largely misplaced unless one ensures that one does not become the type of consultant that AI will surely replace. Smaller AI firms can, in fact, learn to leverage AI effectively to deliver much more than a larger agency much faster, cheaper and better. That will only make such consultancies grow exponentially.

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Clients these days don't want to pay big money for generalist advice, but expect specialists and domain experts to give them more value than what they could obtain themselves by providing prompts to AI. For this, you need the right kind of expertise with regard to a business vertical, as well as the size of the companies you have experience working for. In other words, you know your stuff inside out. You can then position yourself as a niche consultant and own that space for yourself.

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You can make it work better because, unlike traditional consultants who rely on hordes of junior analysts and consultants to do the research, synthesise data and then present their deck to the client, you  rely on much leaner teams with specialised knowledge, allowing you to depute the right specialists in the vertical that your client is in. They will naturally be able to address the challenges and issues facing the company in an optimal manner.

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How AI can help supercharge consultancies

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Far from pushing consultancies on the path to oblivion, AI is, in fact, revolutionising the consultancy process by coming up with data-driven insight, as well  as enabling automation, in the process ensuring that the customers obtain bespoke services and experiences that speak to their concerns and requirements in the best possible manner.

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Because consultants can now obtain rapid access to highly structured data, they are able to make decisions considerably faster than before and thereby substantially reduce the project delivery time. Besides, the use of AI improves accuracy by its ability to flag biases and any possible copyright issues, thereby ensuring that the consultancies come up with stellar output and reduce the risks to a minimum.

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AI is a transformative technology which, if deployed in the right manner, can help supercharge business consultancies by enabling them to provide super value to their customers across industries.

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AI will not replace consultants

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One thing that can be predicted fairly confidently is the fact that there is as much likelihood of AI replacing consultants and consultancies altogether as there is of AI replacing presidents and prime ministers as rulers and administrators of a nation.

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While the  news about AI consultants being sacked or laid off by major AI consultancies (the Big 4) has sent shock waves in the industry, there is naturally a fair bit of anxiety and even dread about the future of consultants and consultancies. Tools like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot can easily step up to the plate and help perform in a matter of minutes what would take junior consultants weeks in the past.

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But when it comes to the strategic component of consulting, AI will come up short on its own. It cannot, for example, earn the trust of a client- the kind borne of a long-term, successful human-to-human relationship. No one will easily accept the advice of carrying out an elemental change in the direction of a business given by AI, whereas the same advice offered by a trusted human consultant will be received favourably. Besides, clients have no way of articulating their problems to AI, but can express these quite easily to someone they can communicate with, again,  at a human-to-human level. All organisations are run by human beings and are, therefore, essentially emotional in their instinct rather than logical like machines.

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For those who have watched the old TV sci-fi series Star Trek with the run-ins between the very deeply human Captain Kirk and  the ever logical and unemotional Mr Spock, it is pertinent to note who the captain of the ship is. Metaphorically, for clients, it is the human consultants who are the captains of their strategic destiny and not AI. The buck always has to and should stop with the humans, and for that reason, you will always need consultancies to help you negotiate the contingencies of business, and plan ahead for optimal success.

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