First, the current business environment presents unprecedented volatility.
Market disruptions are occurring faster and more frequently than ever before. Change is now an integral part of the current business environment, evident in new development trends such as digitalization, the transition to a sustainable model, and internationalization. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
In the last year alone, we have experienced the war in Ukraine, the emergence of metaverses, and a radical shift in the post-pandemic work environment, among many other things. Now, we are witnessing the beginning of the AI technological revolution, global changes in the face of an emerging recession, and a complete reshaping of international energy geopolitics.
Today, more issues than ever determine business success, and many companies turn to consultants for support on all fronts, helping them mitigate risks and generate opportunities. However, these same companies seek immediate results in a constantly changing world, which has led to a race to adapt to the agile consulting model.
In a context where real-time adaptability is more necessary than ever, agile, fast and flexible consulting becomes the logical evolution to respond to new needs.
The latest approaches from large consulting firms attempt to use new services and even templates, which can neither rely on the existing structure of their model nor achieve true agile consulting. So why? How does this differ from traditional consulting?
Traditional consulting is a marathon. It employs a structured approach in which a team of consultants arrives, assesses the current situation, and develops a plan to solve a problem. They work on a large scale and can spend weeks, or even months, analyzing data and making recommendations, concluding with a report outlining a long-term strategy. It’s a style that seeks, at a high cost, to achieve long-term sustainable development.
Agile consulting, on the other hand, works with large sprints. It operates in real time, making it more flexible, faster, and more specialized. It combines the strategic dimension of traditional consulting with the specialization and dynamism gained from working with external specialists through a marketplace. Instead of spending months gathering data and studying the entire company, it locates and collaborates with specialists to achieve specific, high-impact objectives. The great advantage of this model is that it provides a significant boost at a low cost to help a company achieve its goals, whether in project execution, decision-making, or strategic planning.
Agile consulting is gaining ground in the business development sector because it is designed from the ground up to meet the new and emerging needs of its clients, whenever they need it.
Traditional consulting can still provide a large-scale strategy for investing in long-term growth. However, in today’s climate, many companies seek adaptability and rapid progress for their specific projects, making agile consulting the most effective option. Therefore, having recognized the opportunity this model presents, large consulting firms have begun pursuing the complex goal of offering innovative agile consulting within their classic, traditional framework.
Agile consulting is young, and we still have a long way to go, but fortunately, our growth begins at the goal and our path is made by walking.
