Analyzing Trends Q2, 2017: An Index of Consulting Firms’ White Papers

Introduction

BeckWay Group has published its Consulting White Paper Index for Q2 2017. We selected 25 of the leading management consulting firms, reviewed their knowledge papers, and then 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 to the corporate world.

In Q2 2017, we incorporated an analysis of 490 knowledge papers, which was an increase from 429 in Q1 2017.

Industry View

Financial services, the predominant industry covered in Q2 2017, is featured in almost 90 articles representing 18% of the total. (See Table 1.) Considering that we categorize banking and insurance as independent industries and the finance sector becomes even more dominant; together, it represents 24% of the total. Healthcare is next, at just over 50 articles, representing 11%. Technology rounds out the top three industries, at 8%.

There were significantly more articles on technology and financial services in Q2, and a number of these articles included multiple themes; for instance, several discussed the game-changing nature of technology in business – whether through mobility, apps or the cloud.

Coming in at 5%, government policy remained a consistent topic and was often included as part of a focus on healthcare and infrastructure issues, which was driven in part by the new US Administration.

Function / Solution View

Digitization overtook revenue growth as the most frequent function / solution theme of Q2. Content on this subject matter represented almost 14% of the total. Growth themes came in a close second, although its overall share was down from 20% to just 11%. Beyond digitization, other forms of technological transformation represented the third most prevalent topic, with sub-topics ranging from artificial intelligence to agile and 3D printing. When combined, these three technology-related categories represented almost 30% of all white paper articles. What’s interesting to note is there were significantly fewer risk and compliance articles in Q2, shrinking from 10% to just 4% of all articles published.

Geography View

Just over half of the articles had no specific focus on geography, and as such, were classified as “global.” The rest, as expected, were predominantly US-based, representing almost 64% of the total. Rounding out the top five were Europe, the UK, the Middle East and China.

Why Do We Do This

BeckWay Group calculates this index because we believe 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.

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

We appreciate Empulse Global’s assistance in this analysis.

The list of firms included in the Q2 2017 are listed below:

About BeckWay Group

BeckWay Group provides services, technologies and talent to private equity firms and their portfolio

companies. We work side-by- side with management to accelerate strategic

value initiatives, objectively representing the company in identifying, retaining and facilitating

external and internal resources to optimize EBITDA growth. www.beckway.com

Contact Details

Danyell Lance, Director of Talent Manager, BeckWay Group. dlance@beckway.com