These are very exciting times. The worst has hopefully surpassed us now. There is a renewed optimism shared by industries and markets alike. A healthy picture of Indian economy as well as global economy seems to be rising on the horizon. The numbers and metrics seem to be slowly feeling the upwind motion.

What sort of strategies best suits this wave of optimism? Should organizations and markets go all guns blazing or should the paths to renewed growth be treaded with utmost caution?

Below were the sub-themes for the seminars:

Make in India: Role of Consulting Firms

With India entering the MODI era, there is a ray of hope in what he sees for our country "Make in India". Manufacturing in India has built its current footprint through skilled manpower, cost advantage and a large growing domestic market. However, it is at a basic level in terms of innovation and technology. There is an absence of organized and long-term technology led initiatives that can deepen India’s global manufacturing footprint. Developing innovation and technology has been identified as an important strategic step for Indian manufacturing sector as part of MAKE IN INDIA campaign. The intervention of consulting firms has become a mandate to carry out a detailed evaluation of the investment climate, manufacturing infrastructure, regulatory framework, global best practices, etc. for promoting domestic manufacturing and developing an action plan for successful roll out of the 'Make in India' campaign.

Digital Strategy Consulting: Capturing newer avenues

Digital technology is disrupting organizations, wreaking havoc on well-established business models and upending entire industries. Across industries and functions, the common denominator these days is change. Leaders are looking for ways to harness digital technology to drive transformative growth, and to turn the challenges posed by rapid change into a source of competitive advantage.

How is Disruptive innovation in technology forcing consulting firms to adopt out of the box business strategies/business model?

Wikipedia is a unique venture not because it taps the wisdom of the masses or because it has to be co-created. It is unique because it is a new economic form for the production of information. Information production is unique because the marginal cost of information is zero. This means that the most optimal price of information (from a customer’s perspective) is zero, thus no production firm can survive because they cannot afford to give away things for free. Consulting firms are constantly facing such challenges due to disruptive innovation in technology that brings down the cost to satisfy customer needs.

Boutique Consulting: Taking it the next level

Typically, consultants are known as the “Jacks of all trades” than being a “Master of one”. Whereas this “Generalist” approach of the orthodox consultancies have exposed them to a wide range of knowledge gaining opportunities, the depth their expertise remains only so much. On the contrary, the “Specialists” in the boutique consultancies possess an unparalleled depth in knowledge and unique expertise in a specific domain, methodology or an industry sector. With their smaller sizes, boutique consulting firms bring in the agility and flexibility in operations and hence, in turn the speed of completion of projects. The smaller scale of operations also allows boutique firms in reducing the overhead costs and thus probably translating into lower prices for the clients.

Connected mobile experiences (CMX) - drive customer engagement with analytics and insights

The number of mobile users have surpassed the desktop users and the smartphone market is growing at a staggering rate of almost 60%. The customers expect internet connectivity 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. All the major e-commerce players are moving to mobile platform for better customer experience and for better understanding the customer preferences. The more customized an offering is higher are the chances of converting it to sales.

Implementation: Next steps of strategic execution

Industrialist Larry Bossidy observed in his best-selling book Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, “Strategies are intellectually simple; their execution is not”. Consulting firms assisting with implementation of recommended strategic solutions isn’t a new trend. Consultants should always be ready to experiment with new procedures/processes during the course of an engagement—and not wait until the end of the project before beginning to implement change. Strategy becomes more effective if formulated with a feasibility and implementation point of view. Organizations are more likely to use and institutionalize innovations proven successful than recommendations merely set forth on paper.