In the fast-evolving landscape of strategy and innovation consulting, the tools we use have always been critical to our success. Software has long been part of the consultant's toolkit—used internally and for collaboration with clients. However, what was once merely supportive is now becoming transformative, creating both opportunities and challenges for consulting practices serving medium to large enterprises.
The Changing Consulting Landscape
Today's consulting environment demands more than just expertise and insights. Clients expect efficiency, scalability, and technology-enabled solutions. The rapid pace of technological change is forcing companies to innovate their product offerings and business models faster than ever before. No longer can organizations rely on a single product for 10-15 years before exploring adjacencies or responding to disruptive threats. This acceleration affects not only clients but also the consultants serving them.
Within this context, three primary forces are reshaping the consulting landscape:
Operational Efficiency Imperative: Clients are under intense pressure to improve revenue and profitability while staying competitive. They expect consultants to deliver more value, faster and at lower costs.
AI's Transformative Influence: As artificial intelligence capabilities expand, consultants must leverage these technologies to enhance their offerings or risk being perceived as outdated.
New Competitive Dynamics: Traditional consulting now competes with software solutions that, while less specialized and personalized, offer cost-effectiveness and scalability that pure consulting cannot match.
The consultants who thrive in this new environment will be those who recognize that the ideal model combines high-value consulting expertise with software-enabled implementation and scale.
Strategic Options for Consultants
Facing these changes, consultants have three main options:
1. Maintain Status Quo
Some consultants may choose to focus exclusively on advisory services. While this approach leverages existing strengths, it increasingly risks irrelevance as competitors offer integrated solutions that combine insight with implementable tools.
2. Build Proprietary Software
Developing your own software gives you complete control and potentially creates a valuable asset. However, this approach requires significant investment, specialized skills, and ongoing maintenance resources. For many consulting firms, especially mid-sized practices, this path is prohibitively expensive and distracts from core consulting work.
3. Partner with Software Providers
Software partnerships offer the benefits of technology-enabled solutions without the development burden. The key is selecting the right partner by:
- Understanding Client Needs: Evaluate how the software aligns with your clients' most pressing challenges and your working methodology.
- Assessing Purpose Alignment: Choose software built specifically for your target use case, not generalized tools requiring extensive customization.
- Ensuring Business Model Compatibility: Look for partners whose revenue model complements yours, creating mutual benefit rather than competition.
The Partnership Advantage: Why Consider BRI's Growth Forge Affiliate Program
For consultants specializing in strategy and innovation, purpose-built tools like BRI's Growth Forge offer compelling advantages. Here's why it merits consideration:
Built by Practitioners: Growth Forge was developed by experts with direct experience as corporate innovators and consultants serving Fortune 500 clients. This ensures the software addresses real-world strategy and innovation challenges, not theoretical constructs.
Action-Oriented Design: Unlike tools focused merely on ideation, Growth Forge supports the active building and validation phases of the innovation process—where many strategic initiatives falter.
Client Collaboration Hub: The platform creates a sustainable digital collaboration space where consultants and clients can work together throughout the strategy implementation journey, not just during initial engagement.
Efficiency Enabler: Growth Forge helps consultants build and execute client projects more efficiently, allowing you to deliver more value within the same timeframe and resources.
Aligned Business Model: The Growth Forge Affiliate Program allows consultants to share in ongoing revenue, not just receive one-time referral fees, creating a potentially significant recurring revenue stream that complements project work.
The Path Forward
The most successful consultants will embrace the complementary nature of expertise and technology. Rather than seeing software as a threat, forward-thinking consultants recognize it as an amplifier of their value and a pathway to a more scalable business model.
By partnering with the right software providers, consultants can maintain their high-value advisory role while offering clients the implementation tools they need to execute effectively. This hybrid approach delivers the best of both worlds: the personalized expertise of consulting with the efficiency and scalability of software.
For strategy and innovation consultants seeking to evolve their practice, now is the time to explore partnership opportunities that enhance your client offerings while creating new revenue streams.
Take Action
If you're interested in learning more about how BRI's Growth Forge can complement your consulting practice and exploring the affiliate partnership program, connect with the BRI team for a conversation about your specific practice needs and client challenges. Schedule a demo via Calendly: https://calendly.com/jim-at-b-r-i/30-minute-introduction-meeting-clone
