The use of external expertise

Abstract

Should we invest in the professional business services industry? The above title is inspired by the well-known investment portfolio matrix of the Boston Consultancy Group: stars are rising businesses in rising markets (the place to invest), cash cows are thriving businesses in mature markets (where the money comes from), dogs are dying businesses in old markets (the place to divest), and questionmarks are as yet neither real businesses nor real markets but they might become so in a while (the place for the adventurer). Where does the professional business services industry stand? Well then, in all four segments, because the industry has become so large and diversified that we really have to look at specific service-market combinations before taking our investment chances. But this is not the main point raised in this chapter. I took the freedom to use the catchwords in a somewhat different imaginative meaning. In the world of ‘sharp’ consultants, we could imagine the external consultant as the star, pointing business in the right directions. We could imagine the consultancy market as a cash cow, where big stars can earn much money and were the average consultant can make a lucrative living. We could further imagine the consultancy clients as dogs, tied to the leading strings of the judgements and the tariffs of external consultants. We could finally imagine all questionmarks surrounding the consultancy business, with particular regard to the users, but increasingly also with respect to the suppliers. With this licence of imagination, I shall perhaps provoke a few scowled questionmarks among the consultants and a few aha’s among their clients. Of course, the first three images are caricatures and often not valid at all, but the questionmarks are generally there. This chapter provides some answers that might be relevant for the users of professional services in particular. However, before we look at the consultancy-client relations on the shopfloor level, a few statistics about the professional services industry will provide an idea of the magnitude of the markets concerned at the macro-level.