What This Financial Year Taught Me About the Future of Consulting

By Erin Clark, Managing Director, TEC Group

As the end of the financial year approaches, I have found myself reflecting not only on TEC's growth over the past twelve months, but on the consulting industry more broadly.

This has been a fascinating year to be growing a consulting business. Across the market, organisations have continued to face increasing complexity, tighter budgets, competing priorities and growing pressure to demonstrate value. At the same time, the consulting industry has found itself under greater scrutiny than ever before. High-profile project failures, questions about value for money, the rise of artificial intelligence and changing workforce expectations have all contributed to a broader conversation about what clients should expect from external advisors.

From where I sit, the most interesting question is not whether consulting is changing. It clearly is. The more interesting question is what comes next.

The Consulting Industry Is Undergoing a Shift

One of the strongest observations I am taking from this year is that organisations are becoming far more deliberate about the expertise they buy and the outcomes they expect. The days of engaging large consulting teams simply because they represent a well-known brand appear to be fading. Increasingly, leaders are asking a different question: who has solved this problem before, and how quickly can they help us move forward?

That shift has significant implications for the industry.

For many years, consulting firms competed on scale. Larger teams, broader capability statements and increasingly comprehensive service offerings were often viewed as advantages. Today, many organisations are looking for something different. They are looking for specialists who understand their context, can navigate complexity and are capable of translating recommendations into practical action.

This is particularly evident in the areas where TEC operates. Strategic asset management, project portfolio management, governance, technology transformation and organisational change are not disciplines that benefit from generic advice. They require practical experience, judgement and an understanding of how decisions made in one part of an organisation affect outcomes elsewhere.

Expertise Is Replacing Scale

One thing that surprised me this year was how often clients asked for fewer people, not more.

The future is fractional.

A decade ago, consulting proposals frequently emphasised the size of the team. Today, many executives are far more interested in the experience of the individuals involved. They want access to people who have sat in similar roles, faced similar challenges and understand the realities of implementation. They are increasingly willing to trade scale for expertise. This reflects a broader change in how organisations view value. When resources are constrained, leaders become more selective about where they seek external support. They want advisors who can contribute quickly, ask better questions and help navigate difficult decisions. They are less interested in paying for layers of management and more interested in accessing people who can create momentum from day one.

The future of consulting is unlikely to be defined by the size of an organisation's workforce. Increasingly, organisations are seeking access to the right expertise at the right time, rather than large teams assembled around a standard delivery model. The value is shifting from scale towards specialisation, particularly in areas where practical experience and contextual understanding matter significantly.

Organisations Are Tired of the Strategy–Delivery Gap

Another observation reinforced repeatedly this year is that organisations have little appetite for advice that cannot be implemented.

Many leaders have accumulated enough reports, frameworks and recommendations to last a lifetime. What they are looking for now is confidence that a proposed approach can actually work within the realities of their organisation.

The gap between strategy and delivery remains one of the most persistent challenges in consulting. Well-intentioned recommendations often collide with operational realities, governance constraints, funding limitations, capability gaps and competing priorities. None of these challenges are new, but organisations are becoming less willing to accept advisory work that ignores them.

The most effective advisors understand both sides of the equation. They can help define a future state, but they also understand what it takes to move from the current state to that future. They understand that transformation is rarely constrained by a lack of ideas. More often, it is constrained by capacity, clarity and organisational readiness. Increasingly, clients are looking for support that helps bridge the gap between strategy and delivery rather than treating them as separate disciplines.

Clients are telling us they feel increasingly overwhelmed from moving at "AI speed" and want greater clarity about what matters, what can wait and where they should focus their limited resources.

The Most Important Conversations Are About Prioritisation

One of the most significant shifts I have observed this year is the growing prominence of strategic asset management and project portfolio management in executive conversations.

Historically, these disciplines have often been viewed as technical functions. Today, they are increasingly becoming central to organisational strategy because they sit at the heart of some of the most important decisions leaders face.

Every organisation has more ideas than funding. More projects than capacity. More opportunities than time. As a result, leaders are being asked increasingly difficult questions about where investment should be directed, which initiatives should proceed, which should be deferred and what risks are acceptable. These decisions extend well beyond individual business cases. They require organisations to understand trade-offs, opportunity cost, organisational capacity and long-term value.

The conversations that matter most are no longer simply about whether a project is worthwhile. They are about whether it is the right investment relative to every other competing priority. This is where strategic asset management and project portfolio management become powerful. Both disciplines help organisations move beyond individual decisions and towards a more holistic understanding of risk, value, service outcomes and investment priorities.

AI Is Raising the Bar for Consulting

No reflection on this year would be complete without acknowledging the impact of artificial intelligence!

There is no doubt that AI is changing how consulting work is performed. Research can be conducted more quickly. Information is easier to access. Content can be generated in seconds. Activities that previously required significant effort are becoming increasingly automated. This is creating understandable anxiety in some parts of the industry. I see it differently. Artificial intelligence is not removing the need for expertise. It is changing where expertise creates value.

If information becomes abundant, then judgement becomes more important. If everyone can generate a report, then understanding what to do with it becomes the differentiator. If analysis becomes easier, then decision-making becomes the real challenge.

Clients rarely engage advisors because they lack information. They engage advisors because they need help making decisions. They need support navigating competing stakeholder interests, understanding risk, evaluating trade-offs and determining a practical path forward. Those challenges are not disappearing. If anything, they are becoming more important as the volume of information continues to grow.

The Future Belongs to Ecosystems

The best outcomes I have seen this year did not come from a single consulting firm, vendor or delivery partner acting alone. They emerged when multiple specialists worked together around a shared objective.

Perhaps the biggest lesson I am taking into the next financial year is that the future of consulting is unlikely to belong to organisations that try to do everything themselves.

The strongest outcomes we have seen this year emerged when clients, vendors, implementation partners and specialist advisors worked together towards a common goal. Each brought different perspectives, different expertise and different experiences. None held all the answers.

Clients brought organisational knowledge and context. Vendors brought technical expertise. Delivery partners brought implementation capability. Independent advisors contributed governance, assurance and strategic perspective. The value did not come from any one party. It came from their ability to work together. This experience has reinforced my belief that the future belongs to ecosystems rather than empires.

Organisations are increasingly seeking advisors who can collaborate effectively with existing teams, work constructively with software vendors and implementation partners, and focus on outcomes rather than ownership. The best consultants are not those who seek to control every aspect of an engagement. They are those who understand where they add value and how to complement the expertise of others.

This thinking has shaped the way we have built TEC. From the beginning, our ambition was not to create a smaller version of a traditional consulting firm. We wanted to build a consulting collective that could connect organisations with experienced specialists, draw on diverse expertise and create flexible delivery models tailored to the problem being solved.

The model has resonated more strongly than I expected. Experienced professionals are looking for different ways of working. Clients are looking for different ways of accessing expertise. Increasingly, both groups are moving towards models built on collaboration, flexibility and trust.

Looking Ahead

As we move into a new financial year, I am optimistic about where the industry is heading.

Not because consulting is becoming easier, but because it is becoming more focused on what actually matters. The organisations that succeed will be those that bring together the right people, ask better questions and remain focused on creating value rather than simply producing outputs. Likewise, the advisors who thrive will not be those with the largest teams or the most impressive slide decks. They will be those who can help organisations navigate complexity, make better decisions and create momentum where it matters most.

If this year has taught me anything, it is that the future of consulting is not about having more answers. It is about helping organisations ask better questions and bringing the right people together to solve them.

About the Author

Erin Clark is the Managing Director of TEC Group, a consulting collective helping organisations make complex systems work better. She advises boards, executives and delivery teams across strategic asset management, project portfolio management, governance, organisational design and technology transformation. Erin is passionate about creating modern consulting models that connect organisations with trusted specialists, strengthen partnerships and improve delivery outcomes.