White Space: Who are the Real Thought Leaders in Management Consulting?

In their report, Arkimeda, a London-based firm that specializes in the key challenges facing consulting firms and their clients, looks at how management consulting firms are positioning themselves in the market by comparing the thought leadership materials of forty leading firms in the US and Europe.

Fiona Czerniawska, the founder of Arkimeda, was interviewed by MCNews in a previous issue. Her interview can be found by clicking here.

The report notes that recent thought leadership focuses on practical issues, such as ways for clients to cut costs or improve productivity, while shying away from the more visionary thinking of years past. Roughly 40% of all the thought leadership materials, for example, concerned supply chain issues.

Arkimeda points out the lack of innovation in the firms' materials, suggesting that many of the ideas floating around are recycled from days gone by. At the same time, many of the important issues facing clients, like governance, performance management, cross-border management, and organizational culture have taken a back seat.

That's where the 'white space' comes in, and, for some firms, those areas may present opportunities to fill the void.

The report goes on to categorize and rate each firm's approach to thought leadership, and presents the top thought leaders by category:

Experimenters - Best at identifying and developing new ideas

Innovators - Focus on generating substantial, in-depth output on a smaller number of topics

Mainstream Specialists - Concentrate their considerable output on a relatively small number of topics, but tailored to the needs of specific sectors

Niche Specialists - Zoom in on specific sectors with fewer topics and less output than their "mainstream" counterparts

Consultants and aspiring leaders who want to read more about where the 'white space' is in the consulting industry should visit www.Arkimeda.com.