Hi readers,
Scroll through business news or LinkedIn the last few weeks and you'll see the same proclamation everywhere: consulting is dead.
Every business influencer with a blue checkmark seems to have the same hot take: AI is taking over… The consulting model is broken. RIP Big 4.
But there’s something these digital fortune-tellers are missing...
While everyone's writing consulting's obituary, I'm seeing something completely different in the trenches.
Yes, the consulting landscape is shifting dramatically. But death? I don’t think so…
What if the "death of consulting" narrative is actually the biggest opportunity procurement has seen in decades?
Tonight, I'm sharing why I think the consulting doomsayers have it backwards, what's really happening behind the scenes that prophets are missing, and how smart procurement teams are positioning themselves to capitalize on this moment of industry confusion.
More importantly, I'm showing you how to separate the signal from the noise and build a professional services procurement strategy for what's actually coming... not what the headlines claim.
Onwards!
📰 In this week’s edition:
📄 2025 Procurement Metrics that Matter report (sponsored)
📋 5 procurement jobs that caught my eye
🌙 Reports of Consulting's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated…
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👀 In Case You Missed It…
My Best Linkedin post this week:
Reports of Consulting's Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated…
Let's get one thing straight: the consulting industry isn't dying…
In fact, I think it's about to have its best 2-5 years in decades.
But here's the plot twist that aligns with general consensus... It's going to be absolute hell for consultants themselves.
Sound contradictory? Let me explain.
The Geopolitical Treasure Trove
Take a look around. We're living through the most uncertain geopolitical landscape since the 1940s:
Trade wars that economists are calling "the dumbest in history"
Supply chain disruptions that make 2020 look like a practice round
AI regulation uncertainty across major markets
Energy transition chaos in every developed nation
This is consulting catnip.
When the world gets messy, executives panic. When executives panic, they call consultants. It's as predictable as gravity.
Why Leaders Buy Consulting (The Real Reasons)
Sure, they'll tell you it's about "external expertise" and "objective perspectives." But let's be honest about what consulting really provides:
Additional brain power and “hands” when you're drowning. Novel problems require novel solutions. When your internal team is maxed out fighting fires, you need smart people who can think without the baggage of your organizational politics (and then organize, help execute and report on related initiatives).
Someone to blame when things go sideways. Let's not pretend this isn't a factor. When a $50M digital transformation fails, it's great to be able to blame McKinsey. 😂
Permission to make unpopular decisions. Sometimes you already know what needs to be done. You just need someone with a fancy logo and decent brand power to validate it so you can sell it to internal and external stakeholders.
Where AI Falls Flat (And Always Will)
Here's what the "AI will replace consultants" crowd fundamentally misunderstands:
Generative AI is pattern recognition on steroids. It's brilliant at finding solutions that already exist in its training data. But novel problems, by definition, don't have precedent. They require human creativity, contextual understanding, convincing/aligning stakeholders and the ability to synthesize disparate information in ways that have never been done before…
Try asking your favorite LLM how to navigate a supply chain crisis caused by a trade war during an energy transition while managing ESG requirements and new AI regulations.
You'll get a generic framework that sounds smart but is useless in practice!
Novel solutions to novel problems? That's not what AI does. That's what humans do.
And besides, we’re not yet in a place where blaming AI for taking the decisions that lead bad results is socially acceptable 😂 (give it another decade…)
The Consulting Paradox: Great Time to Be a Firm, Terrible Time to Be a Consultant
This is where it gets interesting (and brutal).
Demand for consulting services will be through the roof in the next few years. Complex, interconnected global challenges mean more work than consulting firms have seen in decades.
But AI will gut the talent pipeline. Small teams of talented “seniors” will be all you need to compete.
I was lucky. I came up in an era where the "sink or swim" junior consultant business model made sense. Firms could afford to hire smart college grads, throw them into the deep end, and let them figure it out by doing grunt work on real projects (or quickly realize consulting wasn’t for them…)
Those days are over.
Why hire 10 analysts to build PowerPoint decks and execute data cleansing when AI can do it faster and cheaper? All that formatting, data visualization, and basic research that used to be a junior consultant's training ground? Gone.
The few junior positions that remain will be "sink or swim with a boulder tied to your ankle." You're not just competing with other smart people anymore… You're competing with AI tools that can do 80% of traditional entry-level work.
But honestly, this also spells disaster for consulting “seniors” who aren’t taking the time to become tech savvy… Those who keep behaviors that stem from decades of working in information-scarce environments are also in trouble… (e.g. relying on personal memory and manual processing)
What This Means for You When Picking Consultants
In this new world, the fundamentals matter more than ever:
Aligned incentives. Do they actually care about your success, or are they optimizing for billable hours and follow-on work?
Pattern breaking ability. Can they see what others miss? Can they synthesize information in novel ways? Can they think beyond what's in any training dataset?
Domain expertise + strategic thinking. The combination of deep subject matter knowledge AND the ability to connect dots across domains becomes incredibly valuable.
Trust and relationships. When AI can generate infinite proposals and frameworks, the differentiator becomes: Do you trust this person's judgment when the chips are down? Can they adapt messaging to resonate with your key stakeholders?
Ultimately, consultants are valuable when they can fulfill their core value proposition… And that is to: “improve a client’s condition, leaving them better off than before they arrived” where the differentiation occurs is:
How fast they can do it
How cheaply they can do it
How good you feel after the mandate (e.g. the alignment of solutions with your mission, strategy and culture)
The Bottom Line
Consulting isn't dying. It's evolving into something more concentrated and more valuable.
The industry will consolidate around truly exceptional talent who can navigate unprecedented complexity with digital literacy. The rest will be replaced by AI-augmented internal teams.
For clients, this is fantastic. You'll get the outcomes you want (“improvement of your condition”) at more competitive prices. Make sure to squeeze those margins because there will be a push to grow them on the consulting firm side. If a firm keeps charging the same prices but automates all the busy work with AI in the background, you should be getting a rate cut!).
As someone who buys professional services, I would start asking every quarter (if not month) when my firms are going to be cutting rates given AI-supported optimization → Get specific and list out tasks that they used to do manually and should now be able to do faster with different AI subdomains.
For aspiring consultants, this is terrifying. The barrier to entry just got 10x higher for the industry. Understanding this dynamic and building your skills in consequence is the play. I think we will see big enterprise rotational programs come back as the most desirable place for a new grad. Do you have one in place? Leverage it in your recruitment messaging.
For experienced consultants who can actually solve novel problems? This might be the best time to be in the business since the invention of the PowerPoint deck.
The death of consulting has been greatly exaggerated…
But the “AI transformation” has only just begun.
Let’s touch base in a few years and see how this played out.
What do you think? Are you seeing this shift in the professional services purchased by your organization? If not, have you started looking for new entrants?
Reply and let me know. I read every response.
👀 In Case You Missed It…
The Last 3 Pure Procurement Newsletters:
1/ AI in Procurement: Why Most Teams Will Never Cross the Finish Line
2/ Building the Business Case for Procurement Process Orchestration
3/ A Simple Trick to Create Executive Buy-In
In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
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