With the market for on-demand experts growing rapidly, it’s clear that management consulting firms no longer have a monopoly on providing enterprise leaders with highly skilled professionals to build and execute strategies to solve the toughest business problems their companies face today.

Perhaps accelerated by the pandemic, where corporations found themselves locked into management consulting contracts that were a mismatch for the rapidly-evolving situation, there’s been an upward trend in corporate strategy leaders seeking an alternative to traditional consulting firms. This is only expected to increase across every industry vertical and enterprise size. 

‍Today’s management consulting firms? Still incredibly expensive and not flexible enough

Although management consulting firms have attempted to shift their models in response to client requests for greater flexibility and agility, the fact remains that traditional firms still force enterprises into inflexible arrangements by:

• Proposing large project teams, that typically include one or more consultants who complete the work and one or more management layers to supervise them.
• Imposing their cookie-cutter frameworks on client companies, rather than working within a client’s established in-house framework.
• Lacking sufficient understanding of a client’s culture, operations, and processes.
• Requiring the lengthy negotiation and signing of large multi-million dollar contracts, even when a project may only need one or a few highly skilled experts to complete work quickly.
• Charging a premium to cover the multiple layers of supervisory, administrative, and executive overhead at their firms.

Today’s better way – A right-sized, flexible consulting model with savings of 30-50%

Today, corporate strategy leaders can bypass the familiar downsides and one-size-fits-all approach of traditional management consulting firms by engaging with an on-demand talent platform.

An on-demand talent platform maintains a network of thousands of highly-vetted experts. These experts bring on average 10-15 years of professional experience and considerable insights into the most effective ways to complete initiatives across the corporate landscape. Many are alumni of management consulting firms. All offer deep knowledge or expertise in their area of proficiency, including the technologies and other tools required to complete assignments.

Trusted by respected enterprises across the Fortune 1000, on-demand talent platforms enable seamless access to the world’s best independent corporate strategy consultants on demand using a process that is:

Right-sized. Whether you need a single expert or multiple individuals, to achieve your goals. You can rapidly address skill gaps or bandwidth constraints by engaging only the talent required for any given project, rather than paying for a management consulting firm’s large project team. 

Cost-effective. With on-demand talent platforms you are able to onboard former MBB and Big-4 consultants without the brand name consulting firm pricing – enabling you to achieve 30-50% in cost savings compared to traditional consulting prices.

Flexible. Scale your teams up or down, at any time, to bridge talent gaps by engaging with independent experts and paying only for work delivered, rather than being tied up with contracts. On-demand talent platforms also enable building a virtual bench of experts that you can rely upon as needed over a longer term.

Fast and Efficient: Sophisticated on-demand talent platforms combine white-glove service along with digital capabilities to enable you and your colleagues to shortlist, assess and onboard the ideal candidate for your projects. 

Getting started with on-demand

Explore how a modern flexible talent model can help your enterprise break free from the restrictive management consulting paradigm. 

For more information on how your peers are already leveraging proven on-demand talent platforms, check out these real-world examples or this guide to approaches you can leverage to address your most pressing talent needs.