ANALYZING TRENDS IN Q2 2019: BECKWAY GROUP’S INDEX OF CONSULTING FIRM WHITE PAPERS

Executive Summary

Beckway has published its Consulting Firm White Paper Index for Q2 2019. We selected 25 of the leading management consulting firms, reviewed their knowledge papers, and categorized this information into themes. Our examination was further refined by placing each theme within three frameworks: industry, functional solutions and geography. This analysis provides critical insight into what the leading consulting firms believe are the most relevant management topics in the corporate world.

In Q2 2019, we incorporated an analysis of 729 knowledge papers.

• The healthcare/pharmaceutical industry took the spotlight, representing 9% of the total, which made it the largest industry topic surveyed by the consulting firms. It has remained a constant topic of focus and has remained the leading topic since our last analysis in Q1. In the functional solutions framework Technology &Transformation, R&D/Integration emerged with the highest level of interest at 13%.
• The geographical themes were slightly changed compared to Q1 2019, with the United States making the most significant increase from 25% to 29%. Ranked highest to lowest are the U.S., Europe, UK/Russia, Asia/Pacific, North America, China, India, Africa/Spain and Canada. However, this does not account for the 49% of articles published without a specific geographical focus, which we designated as “global.”

Industry View

The Healthcare/Pharmaceutical industry has remained a front-runner from Q1 and has increased their industry percentages to 10% for Q2 2019. Healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry continue to be hot topics for a vast majority of Americans and are increasingly becoming more prevalent with the upcoming Presidential election in 2020. (See Tables 1 & 2).

The second major industry, which gained popularity from Q1 2019 was IT/BPO/Communications, with 72 articles, also accounting for 10% overall. The level of attention to this category has increased while companies search for ways to cut costs by relying on business process outsourcing (BPO). The Financial Services/Business & Strategy has tied the Pharmaceutical industry and IT/BPO with 10% overall, a 4% increase from Q1.

The number four spot, representing 37 articles and 5% overall, is the Retail category, followed by Automotive/Robots and Individual oriented/social event sector/gender parity/disparity, both also at 5%.

Table 1

Table 2

Functional Solutions View

In the functional solutions category, our analysis revealed that Technology & Transformation, R&D/Integration topped the chart with 97 articles and 13%, a 1% increase which beat out Company/Industry Strategy & Review at 12% for the top spot. Consumer/Market Analysis & access followed with 9%, which dropped a percentage point from last quarter. Gov’t Policy/Rules & Regulation filled spot number four, at 8%, and Digitization/Smart Technology came in last with 57 articles. When combined, the top five categories represented half of the total, at 50%. The biggest percentage decrease from Q1 2019 to Q2 2019 Gov’t Policy/Rules & Regulation, dropping from 11% to 8%. The largest percentage increase was tied between Behavioral/Work management and Operating Model Design/Partnership, rising from 0% to 4%. (See Tables 3 and 4).

Table 3

Table 4

Geographical View

Almost half (49%) of the articles published did not have a specific geographical focus, so we classified them as “global” (See Tables 5 & 6). The remainder of knowledge papers, as predicted, featured the U.S. as its main geographical focus, and represented 29% of the total, a 4% increase from Q1. Rounding out the top five were Europe, UK/Russia, Asia/Pacific and North America.

Table 5

Table 6

About the Index

Beckway calculates the index because we believe that understanding the trends of leading management consulting firms is both informative and important.

Our website serves as a research center for these topics since we provide full-length links to the individual papers.

The index is calculated by reviewing white papers on the websites of the management consulting sample set, which is listed below. Each knowledge paper is reviewed and assigned a theme. In a minority of cases, multiple themes are assigned, each receiving a proportional score such that each knowledge paper is only recorded as a single entry.

We appreciate Empulse Global’s assistance in this analysis.

The list of firms included in Q2 2019 are listed below:

Accenture Consulting
Alix Partners
Alvarez and Marsal
Arthur D Little
AT Kearney
Bain & Company
BCG
Capgemini
Deloitte Consulting
FTI Consulting
Grant Thorton Consulting
Huron Consulting Group
IBM Consulting
KPMG Management Consulting
LEK Consulting
McKinsey
Marakon
Navigant
Oliver Wyman
Parthenon – EY
Protiviti
PWC Advisory
Roland Berger
Simon-Kucher and Partners
ZS Associates

About Beckway
Beckway provides operational capabilities through operating partners, proprietary execution software and talent finders to private equity funds to support due diligence and enhance their portfolio investment performance. www.beckway.com

Contact Details

Danyell Lance, Chief People Officer, BeckWay Group. dlance@beckway.com