Looking forward: Digital Disruption and Management Consulting

20 years ago nobody was sending email, information was available almost exclusively from physical sources and business processes were designed almost exclusively in-house.

But advances in technology have drastically changed our behaviour both as consumers and in the workplace.

An ulterior effect of the information and networking age has been an increase in the flexibility of service offerings by professional services firms. Although the big four still hold most of the market, recently there has been a rise in niche firms, offering services more suited to smaller organisations.

These subjects were covered at a recent panel event hosted by the Master of Management Society at the University of Sydney Business School. The four distinguished guests shared their experience of how industries in Australia are being disrupted and included the following:

• Matthew Gilmour - Founder of Ozforex , an international exchange company that was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange for $442 million
• Emily Yue - Founder of Expert 360, a firm that connects businesses requiring professional services to top freelance professionals and consultants, most of whom have previously had careers at the top firms and agencies
• Damien Tampling - Head of Digital Strategy, Transformation and Investment Practices at Deloitte
• Christopher Kurwie - Senior Associate at Venture Consulting, a company specialising in working with digital, media and telecommunications companies

Panellists, left to right; Matthew Gilmour, Founder, Ozforex; Emily Yue, Co-Founder and COO, Expert 360; Damien Tampling, Partner, Deloitte; and Christopher Kurwie, Senior Associate, Venture Consulting; and host, Emma Cowan, current student in the Master of Management program

Naturally, with three consultants at the table and many aspiring consultants in the audience, there was a lot of discussion on the topic of the management consulting industry.

Damien, the panel’s representative of the Big Four, accepted that the level of disruption in the industry will possibly see the established players become smaller in the coming years, driven by a combination of factors.

From a technological perspective, the online channel used by Expert 360 (described as internet dating meets consulting services) has facilitated a much larger and more diverse market for professional services than what existed previously.

A lack of flexibility in the established firms is another reason for change in the industry. Emily Yue nominated this as the primary reason for Expert 360 being established, as it allows start-ups and smaller enterprises to hire specialist staff as needed, for specific lengths of time, eroding the advantage of larger corporations that can afford to have specialists employed full-time.

Furthermore, in seeking to value add and offer greater expertise to companies, many specialist consulting firms are focusing on specific industries and company sizes; Chris Kurwie’s employer, Venture Consulting, is an example of such a firm.

Discussion among the panel was not confined to the consulting profession; the guests also had the opportunity to share their insights on entrepreneurship and innovation in general. In reflecting on how Venture seeks to make companies more innovative, Chris noted that it tends to entail either the specialisation or diversification of services. Matthew Gilmour exemplified specialisation as a source of innovation, having founded a company that deals only in a specific area of financial services. In his view, the opportunity to innovate tends to be grounded in “fat margins and red tape”: where this can be found, there will often be an opportunity to innovate.

Equally important was his view, upheld by the panel, that most successful entrepreneurs will acquire knowledge and experience in their chosen field prior to creating their own enterprises. Matt’s prior experience in working in foreign exchange for large institutions as well as Emily Yue’s stint as a consultant for Bain & Co. justifies the importance of this prerequisite for being an entrepreneur. In light of this, Matt suggested the stories of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg creating billion-dollar enterprises straight out of college should be seen as the (very rare) exception, rather than the rule. If you intend to be an entrepreneur, perhaps it will pay off to continue your education post-university, pursuing a position at an established company to deepen your understanding and connections in the industry prior to trying to go at it alone.

As experienced professionals and industry leaders, the panellists did an exceptional job of representing themselves and their companies.

This was the second event of this kind that has been hosted by the Master of Management Society, following an alumni event held three weeks earlier.

Max Evans
Current student in the Master of Management program at the University of Sydney Business School and Analyst at CitiBank

Business start-ups: Why small sometimes trumps big

 

Being a member of the Sydney University Business School team that won last semester’s Deloitte Fastrack Innovation Challenge was an invaluable experience for a number of reasons.

Apart from the chance to develop a business idea with solid market potential, my involvement also offered a new perspective on two different business approaches - entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship. While the former refers to building a business external to other companies, the latter involves building something within the constraints of a pre-existing company structure. (For the record, we approached our task more from the entrepreneurial side, essentially creating a start-up relevant to Deloitte.)

It all got me thinking about the idea of small companies versus large, and the way that large organisations can try to compete with smaller entities. This can be harder than it sounds. True, small companies don’t have many resources, many people, much money, or even any connections. But if they have a great team, a great idea and have identified a market opportunity, they can make decisions quickly, expand rapidly and fill that gap potentially faster than a large organisation. Having some large organisation experience, I know that many can’t move as fast. For example, one business I worked for took six weeks to approve an update to one paragraph on the company website.

Interestingly, some larger companies are trying to overcome their inherent limitations in order to remain ahead of the curve. Deloitte themselves are a classic example, promoting a culture of innovation and trying to remain flexible and mobile. The fact that after we won the innovation challenge they entered into negotiations with us around incorporating our business idea into their existing framework, is highly indicative of this strategy.

We've now decided to take our idea to market for real. This is a hugely exciting opportunity as we’ll potentially be competing with other larger organisations that perhaps aren’t as flexible. But regardless of what happens from here, the experience of competing in the innovation challenge has been fantastic. Being involved in every facet of building a business - from finance to marketing and strategy - was a really steep learning curve. Nonetheless, it was an incredible experience that complemented my degree perfectly.

Author: Rory Aston James – Master of Management student

The Next Big Step

Having completed my Honors in Government and International Relations last year, the next step in my academic career was always going to be a crucial one.

As someone who’s interested in politics and how government works, I’d been primarily focused on bureaucrat policy creation, looking at why bureaucracies operate the way they do, as well as why some policies get suggested at certain points in time and not at others. But I still felt I was lacking a fairly large piece of the puzzle. That’s why I signed up for the Master of Management degree.

There are a lot of people working in government who have political science or policy degrees. They’re very much aware of how the science behind decision-making works. But there aren’t many people within the government sector who have an idea of how to actually implement what they’ve researched. I think that zone of intersection between the public and private sectors is an extremely important area, and I believe that combining my interest in policy creation with a strong understanding of business will prove to be highly beneficial.

I’m currently halfway through the degree and I feel it’s definitely providing me with the tools I’ll need to apply my policy knowledge in a practical sense. For example, I’ve really enjoyed learning how financial markets and businesses operate, and think that a project we worked on with accounting and consultancy firm Deloitte (we had to come up with an innovative business model idea and sell it to them) has been a definite highlight.

When it’s all over, ideally I’d love to get into some sort of lobbying position, which would be a great example of that intersection between public and private. I’m also interested in the management consultancy side of things, or possibly approaching my career path from the governmental side via a ministerial advisory role. I really can’t wait to see how it all plays out.