Having just celebrated our 20th Anniversary in consulting I gave some thought as to themes we encountered along our journey. What jumped out almost immediately to me was CHANGE – which is not surprising in itself.   But as I reflected more it occurred to me that in all (or at least all that I can recall) our client assignments that IT’S ALWAYS ABOUT CHANGE.

It wasn’t necessarily or often expressed that way at all in our consulting work scope documentation but rather was expressed as being interested in:

• • increased market share = doing something different than current practice = change
  • expanding into new territories or products = to get growth beyond current results = change
  • reducing cost of operations = doing the current work better, differently or more effectively = change
  • understanding a new market segment or distribution channel = how and where might we grow = change
  • expanding through acquisition = non-organic growth into new/deeper markets and potentially adding new capabilities = change
  • developing a new strategy for growth = entering new markets or exiting some current, adding new distribution, extending product lines = change…

The list could go on and on but regardless of the stated objective and the work product, our clients engaged us as they were not happy with the status quo.  Even a basic research project – whether proprietary or syndicated to the industry, was commissioned in the pursuit of understanding something that was unknown or in some cases wanting to be confirmed.