Flow of Information a Tough Challenge for Consulting Firms

Two thirds of consulting firms say that landing new business is one of their biggest challenges, according to a new survey from software firm Bluescape (www.bluescape.com), and that receiving necessary information existing clients was almost as hard, cited by nearly half of all respondents.

Other top challenges for consultants include developing innovative and impactful recommendations (37%) and keeping project scope in line (33%).

While it’s evident collaboration is a top priority in consulting (97% of respondents cited it as extremely important or very important) very few report implementing new techniques to improve collaboration. Physical meetings and conference calls are cited by 48% of respondents as the most common forms of collaboration, while 20% rely on email.

“We work closely with consultants and recognize that competition is fierce, and the need to stand out from the pack is greater than ever,” said Scott Poulton, CEO of Bluescape, the makers of a visual collaboration platform used by consulting agencies. “The pressure is on to differentiate, compete, and innovate. At the end of the day, the priority is delivering the best results possible. It’s all about making the client happy, and there are many new approaches to help consultants achieve their goals more efficiently; it’s simply a matter of being willing to change.”

Sharing ideas through constant dialogue and discussion is cited as the top method of collaborating, yet decades old, two-dimensional products are still relied on to connect. PowerPoint remains king in the consulting world, in use by a full 87% of respondents, while word processing, spreadsheets, and PDF’s were also cited by more than 70%. This data clearly shows the need among consultants for new, more innovative collaborative technologies to support the consulting process, from start to finish.

With Bluescape, consultants are able to collaborate with their teams and their clients in one, persistent, visual, and entirely digital workspace. A cloud-based solution with an intuitive interface, Bluescape allows users to see the whole picture as they create, develop, and refine, resulting in better solutions, faster. The technology is used by some of the most respected firms in the industry.

The Consulting Survey was commissioned by Bluescape and conducted online between December 12, 2016 – January 12, 2017, with more than 160 respondents. For more information, please download the eBook here: http://create.bluescape.com/how-consultants-can-collaborate-to-succeed.