6 Industry Trends That Can Help Increase Your Consulting Firm’s Growth Potential

According to Accenture, over 76% of companies are investing in emerging technologies. While technology can provide firms with unprecedented project visibility, it can also help teams collaborate and work to their full potential. This model increases customer satisfaction and ultimately helps to deliver higher-quality projects. Technology combined with the right expertise can help unlock new markets and increase your consulting firm’s growth potential.

Learn more about what research reveals regarding today's emerging trends and how consulting firms are adjusting to the demands of the industry:

1. Expanding Possibilities for Artificial Intelligence

The Hinge Research Institute discovered that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the top must learn technology trend for high-growth firms. Although AI is not new, in 2021 it became more of a focus for consulting firms as they sought to increase market share and capitalize on an emerging trend. There is good reason to believe that opportunity will continue to grow.

McKinsey also found in their Automation Survey, only 55 percent of institutions believe their automation program (leveraging AI) has been successful to date. Furthermore, a little over half of those survey respondents said their programs have been  more challenging to implement than expected. Given these statistics, this leaves plenty of room for consultancies with the proper expertise to capitalize on this growth area.

2. Rising Demand for Internet of Things (IoT)

Linchpin, a digital marketing agency, recently revealed that over eight billion devices are connected to IoT are in circulation, and that number is expected to grow over 40 billion by 2027. Many of the large consulting groups have implemented an IoT practice in the last few years to support this trend. This increased connectivity represents a huge opportunity for all consulting firms. 

Industry analyst, AI Multiple, advises that consulting firms wishing to compete in the IoT space should become fluent in the following skills:

• Embedded software development
• IT Security
• Field Gateway programming
• User experience (UX & UI)
• AI and Data Analytics

3. Leveraging Big Data & Analytics

According to analytics platform provider Sisense, 49% of companies are using data analytics "more or much more" than before the COVID-19 crisis. With the rise of Big Data and IoT, the demand for better analytics has become a major trend across many industries. Some firms see big data and analytics as a threat, with dashboards and reports effectively replacing consultants. However, this trend predicts to create more jobs than it does to dissolve them.

While big data applications assumingly crunch numbers more accurately than people, humans are still needed to decipher the results and attribute meaning to the data. In addition, the design, implementation, training and ongoing support will need to be handled by specialized teams, leaving room for opportunity.