Volker Nissen

Editor

Digital Transformation of the

Consulting Industry

Extending the Traditional Delivery Model

Preface

When I was a small child the watchmaking industry was reigned by watches from European
or American companies. Then, around 1970, the first electronic quartz watches became
available to a broad market. During the next 15 years the watchmaking industry changed
completely. Former leading companies were often marginalized or became extinct. The mass
business shifted from traditional mechanical watches to electronic watches, where producers
were often located in Asia. Moreover, the price level for an average wrist watch dropped
dramatically. However, in the long run also the attitude towards watches changed. The wrist
watch has increasingly mutated from a simple chronometer into an actual piece of fashion.
Moreover, smart watches appeared and revolutionized what a watch can be. Thus, new markets
opened up and producers experience new chances for profitable growth.
Consulting firms can learn a lot from these developments that changed the appearance of the
watchmaking industry forever. Within the next years, the business and delivery models of
consulting have to be re-designed and partly re-invented. Technology-based consulting
solutions will gain ground. The importance of IT and associated qualifications rise, and the war-
for-talents in consulting will get even tougher than today. Consulting services will be unbundled
and become more modularized with considerable consequences for sales. Moreover, the
pressure on prices for standard services also puts your margins at risk. Digitalization and
decreasing customer loyalty intensify competition in consulting. Clients require solutions that
integrate aspects of strategy-, process-, and IT-consulting with design challenges. Concurrently,
new billing models need to be introduced.
However, you can turn threats into opportunities for new business. Prepare for the new and
promote the change. New models, like crowdsourcing-supported or self-service consulting,
new tools for data- and process mining, and the maturing of AI all offer possibilities to
complement and optimize the existing service portfolios of consulting providers. Incumbents
and technology-driven newcomers in the consulting market can work fruitfully together.
Automated low-cost consulting solutions can open up whole new segments of clients that would
otherwise never approach a consulting firm. In this book, you will find inspiration and help to
accomplish the digital transformation in business consulting.
A book like this is the result of hard work of different parties. I would like to thank all people
who contributed to this book! This not only includes the various authors, but also my doctoral
students, in particular Mr. Henry Seifert, and staff at my chair at the University of Technology
Ilmenau, especially Mrs. Anne Füßl, as well as the editorial office at Springer, in particular Mr.
Christian Rauscher as the executive editor. It was a pleasure to work with you all! - I would
also like to express my gratitude to colleagues and seniors during my more than twelve inspiring
years in the consulting business. Finally, I wish to thank my wife Iska for her support and
understanding during the long formation phase of this book.
It would certainly make me happy if this volume provided not only some scientific
contribution in the field of Consulting Research, but also concrete practical help to consulting
companies in their own digital transformation initiatives. If you have comments on the book,
or need further support and advice, please contact me at volker.nissen@tu-ilmenau.de .

Enjoy the book!

Volker Nissen.

Ilmenau, Germany, August 2017.

Contents

Digital Transformation of the Consulting Industry – Introduction and

Overview .................................................................................................................... 6
Volker Nissen

Part I Scientific Contributions

Virtualization of Consulting Services: State of Research on Digital

Transformation in Consulting and Future Research Demand .......................... 50
Henry Seifert, Volker Nissen

Does Digitization Matter? Reflections on a Possible Transformation of the

Consulting Business ................................................................................................ 58
Thomas Deelmann

Opportunities and Risks of Digital Business Model Innovation for Behemoths

in Consulting ........................................................................................................... 77
Matthew Flynn, Marek Kowalkiewicz

Scalability in Consulting: Insights into the Scaling Capabilities of Business

Models by Digital Technologies in Consulting Industry ..................................... 89
Dirk Werth, Tobias Greff

Chances, Risks and Quality Criteria of Virtual Consulting ............................. 103

Volker Nissen, Henry Seifert, Marco Blumenstein

Digital Transformation in Business Consulting – Status Quo in Germany .... 114

Volker Nissen, Henry Seifert

Evaluating the Virtualization Potential of Consulting Services ....................... 144

Volker Nissen, Henry Seifert

A Process Model for the Virtualization of Consulting Services ....................... 155

Volker Nissen, Henry Seifert, Mats Ackert

A Method to Support the Selection of Technologies for the Virtualization of

Consulting Services............................................................................................... 182
Volker Nissen, Henry Seifert, Marco Blumenstein
Part II Applied Digitalization in the Consulting Industry

Improving Business Development through Crowdsourcing Supported

Consulting – A Methodical Approach ................................................................ 209
Oliver Christ, Michael Czarniecki, Lukas Scherer

Crowd Workplace – A Case Study on the Digital Transformation within IT-

and Management-Consulting .............................................................................. 225
Henry Seifert, Volker Nissen

A Reasoning Based Knowledge Model for Business Process Analysis ............ 244
Anne Füßl, Franz Felix Füßl, Volker Nissen, Detlef Streitferdt

ProMAT – A Project Management Assessment Tool for Virtual Consulting 265

Volker Nissen, Jochen Kuhl, Hendrik Kräft, Henry Seifert, Jakob Reiter, Jim Eidmann

Consulting Self-Services - A Multi-Project Management Application ........... 279

Friedrich Augenstein

The Best of Two Worlds - Digitization of Matchmaking between Consulting

Firms and Independent Consultants .................................................................. 295
Christoph Hardt

Experiences with the Digitization of the Interaction Room Method for IT

Strategy Development and Software Project Scoping ...................................... 304
Erik Hebisch, Simon Grapenthin, Matthias Book, Markus Kleffmann, Volker Gruhn

An Innovative Social Media Recruiting Framework for Human Resource

Consulting.............................................................................................................. 314
Ricardo Buettner, Ingo J. Timm

The Digitalization of Consulting and Auto-Assignment of Experts in the

MedTech and Life Sciences Industries ............................................................... 322
Thorsten Knape, Moritz Fröhlich, Peter Hufnagl

References .................................................................................................................. 336

About the Authors..................................................................................................... 358