Ben shared his insights on the following matters and more:   

• While clients rarely begin by stating “we need to grow our business”, this desire for growth is behind many of the challenges they raise, such as CRM system issues or new product launch hurdles. It is therefore crucial for consultants to link these discrete problems back to the ultimate business outcome of driving growth in order to tailor the services firms offer. 

• While traditional buyers like COOs, CTOs, CPOs, CFOs, chief digital & information officers, and chief transformation officers still buy services, consultants need to be careful not to assume these roles are buying the same services as they were historically. For instance, a chief people officer might now be more interested in technology and data insights. This leads to more cross-functional buying, plus two or three buyers may be involved, rather than a single sponsor, making the sales process more complex. Clients want support around the technological, operational, and data aspects of AI.  

• The need for ethical and responsible AI use is increasingly important to clients and is also driving consulting demand. Where AI-driven decisions influence customer experience or service delivery getting those right is particularly critical. 

• Clients are actively identifying and developing a backlog of AI use cases. Firms can help them manage these as a portfolio, using clear decision criteria to quickly determine if a proof of concept is viable. Interestingly, “edge cases” from this portfolio, rather than the immediately obvious ones, often prove to be the most impactful. 

If you enjoyed this conversation, don’t miss our sister podcast, Business Leader’s Voice. In a recent episode, we talked to Andrew Brothers, former Chief Information Officer at Primark, about targeting tech investment as a CIO.