2014 Readers' Choice Survey: Consulting

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Talk about a market in transformation: The days of large-scale ERP implementations — which have been called the consultant’s bread and butter — are long gone. Lora Cecere, founder, Supply Chain Insights, identifies the new business and technology initiatives that have taken their place. Plus, she reveals how consulting companies have stepped up to the plate in helping to deliver new solutions that meet the new objectives of consumer goods companies in a forever transformed business landscape.

Can you comment on this list? Is the outcome what you would expect?
Cecere: This list of consulting partners is quite different from prior years. In my opinion, the ranking reflects the level of investment that the consulting firms have made in serving the industry.

At No. 1 this year, Accenture has focused on this market and has been a strong industry supporter of consumer packaged goods companies. The stalwart presence at industry events and the relationship management of the firm is unpatrolled by the other system integrators.

Booz & Company, at No. 2, has demonstrated unique and differentiated capabilities in trade promotion management and has been actively involved in defining new and improved trade processes with CGT’s Trade Promotion Management Share Group.

PWC, a newcomer to the list at No. 7 (and which is expected to merge with Booz & Company in 2014), is clearly rising in importance.

Meanwhile, Infosys, present in last year’s list, is conspicuously absent from the ranks this year.

I also see that the gap is widening between the traditional consulting providers and the Indian service providers.

For what types of projects are consumer goods companies enlisting the help of consulting partners?   
Cecere: As the software market has matured, there is a shift from large implementations to a focus on process excellence. Consumer goods companies have a lot of data. They now want to leverage that data more effectively. They want to drive and harness new insights from that data. As a result, there is a strong focus on projects for in-memory computing, self-service reporting and data visualization, and master data management (MDM).

There are also a few new areas of opportunity for consumer goods companies to use consulting partners, including digital path to purchase, digital manufacturing and big data analytics.  In these project areas, many consumer goods companies have formed dedicated teams and are now actively looking for help. 

What are the advantages of using consulting partners for new technology or process projects versus taking a do-it-yourself approach ?
Cecere: Very simply, the use of consulting partners helps to minimize “group think”. In addition, the consulting partner is able to drive change at a faster rate than companies can drive internally. With the shifting of engagements from major technology implementations to smaller, more focused business process projects, change management plays a larger role. It is for this reason that consulting partners with depth in process excellence are rising on the Readers’ Choice list.