The Next Generation of Consulting: Quality Without Dilution

As The World Changes, It Is More Important Than Ever To Access Expert Advice That Is Better Than Anything From A Big Brand: Consulting That Drives Results

Apr 30, 2024

The title of the blog

Osmium76 is the most dense element of the periodic table. Consulting (whether expert witness, strategy, technology, etc) should be about substance. Density. Bringing in experienced, valuable human assets, who provide the insights that make decision-makers think and re-think.

Consulting resources that by virtue of their quality, should not be affordable on a full time basis, but whose input, even in precious dustings, like the valuable spices of old, changes the entire recipe.

That is not how the world of consulting works today.

The broken model of top tier consulting

Top tier consulting is broken. It is a model built on the principle of dilution; nebulous; in-substantive. It is perfect for the rubber stamp of a major brand to sanction pre-formulated plans, but is largely incapable of adding fresh insights to a competent management team.

The vast majority of a team of consultants, if not all, are entirely affordable and available, and yet would rarely be hired by the end client, ever. Why is that?

Part of the reason is that, in our opinion, big brand consulting is merely a political tool, designed to sanction and legitimise pre-made decisions of existing leadership. This is best exemplified by the scandalous audit failures: a critical function for shareholders, that has seen scandal after scandal as the vendor-service provider relationship is corrupted.

There is little room for high quality individuals in such a consulting model. It is a dilutive model that is paid for its brand, and not for its content.

Why is old consulting broken?

The reason that model of consulting fails is because it is built in a different era. To begin with it was founded in a pre-internet age, and so margins were essential to pay for rents: both the direct rents of offices in expensive city centres, but also the indirect rents of employees educated at the finest schools with promises of a corresponding lifestyle.

To achieve those margins, major consulting firms became people farms, engage the young and the bright, and in exchange for fourteen hour days, they had an opportunity to ride the escalator up to partner, where they earn a share of the profits on the people farm.

However, conflict is inherent. In order to profit, the model needs margin, and so the more of those young new consultants that are outsourced to the client, the higher the margin. Conflict is baked in to the business.

Litigation: The first crack in a broken model

Where that model of consulting fails, is the circumstances when it merits it needed, not a brand. In the past, fifty years from the end of the gold standard to now, there has rarely been a great need for merit based consulting. The direction has been clear, and so too has the formula for success: business schools would churn out fodder, armed with the requisite lingo, to fit into a major consulting firm, and pass the corporate sniff test.

It is because we felt that brand trumped merit, that we focused solely on areas where merit trumped brand: such as litigation. We (Acumen Expert Witnesses) were one of the first boutiques in the space to follow a non-dilutive model: where the collective experience of a team of five would be at least fifty years, and often closer to a hundred. Many others followed. Major consulting firms all but disappeared from the litigation space.

We understood that for boutique consulting firms to succeed, they would need to focus on areas where merit is valued over brand. This small understanding of strategy set us up for incredible success.

Aside from niche areas, for most of the past fifty years, there was little need for merit. Little real strategy or consideration was required. However, the world is different now.

The tech driven transformation

The model of consulting we built and we evangelise couldn’t exist without changes in technology. We envision a world where high quality consultants cut out the high margin model of consulting of old to deliver their expertise directly to the end client.

In our world there is no need for a dozen analysts, who are marked up 5x to 10x, but rather a smaller team of experienced professionals, often with a decade or more in their respective field.

The end result, clients get more experience for less: valuable, otherwise in accessible talent, for a fraction of the price of big brand consulting.

The change

We think now that the world is changing, the need for merit driven consulting will be pervasive.

Four major changes are happening that are now nearly undeniable: (a) technology; (b) monetary and fiscal regimes; (c ) geopolitical power; (d) and all of these feed into national politics too: when change comes, some countries will thrive and others won’t.

With those changes, countries, central banks, major corporations that are to survive and thrive will need access to top tier knowledge and experience.

Osmium76 is a blog that is for clients - who wish to know how to get the most out of the consulting market. Whether you are general counsel, a COO or a litigation lawyer, accessing the right talent makes a marked difference to the outcome. Utilising the model of yesteryear could have disastrous outcomes for the coming decades - we have witnessed this first hand in the litigation space: there have been some horrendous car crashes that are a consequences of accessing the wrong talent, and the client always picks up the bill.

Once there was a saying ‘You don’t get fired for hiring [Fill In The Big Brand Firm Here]. Today the opposite could be true - particularly when the outcome really matters. In the coming years you are going to need to work out your solution to digital changes (artificial intelligence, blockchain, virtual reality, etc); to geopolitical hazards (the brewing China-America cold war), the monetary and fiscal responses, and finally how individual countries will fare.

For consultants too

Our goal is to change the world, and so we want to empower a community of individual consultants. We want those consultants, confident in their understanding of their space, and brave enough to strike out on their own, to succeed over the big firms.

And so this is also a blog for consultants who are considering how to compete with the major consulting firms - it is possible to create an offering that takes on major firms. We explain how we did it in litigation and by joining our network, we could collaborate on accessing clients, and delivering solutions.

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