{"id":37554,"date":"2018-11-26T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-26T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glg.tempsite.space\/news\/thriving-in-the-long-tail\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T08:42:56","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T12:42:56","slug":"thriving-in-the-long-tail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glginsights.com\/ja\/news\/thriving-in-the-long-tail\/","title":{"rendered":"Thriving in the Long Tail"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Nick Barnard, Managing Director, Professional Services Firms at GLG<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Every year, as GLG\u2019s Head of Professional Services Firms, Americas, I help welcome the latest class of new graduates to our Associate program. We hold a workshop on Chris Anderson\u2019s 2004 article,\u00a0The Long Tail<\/a><\/i>, and discuss why GLG is sometimes referred to as \u201cthe long tail of consulting.\u201d GLG pioneered the expert economy 20 years ago delivering top professionals customized access to both popular (fat tail) and niche (long tail) experts at scale economics. And we still lead it today, bringing the power of insight to every great professional decision.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been giving this talk for 10+ years, but this time was different.<\/p>\n

We were welcoming our largest-ever class, with 120 talented new hires. And GLG Associates ask sharp, probing questions. This year, one new team member challenged me on whether it was time to write an update to\u00a0The Long Tail<\/i>. After all she pointed out, a lot has changed since 2004.<\/p>\n

Indeed, much has. Streaming, for example, has enabled a \u201cstage 2\u201d of the long tail revolution, providing disruptors like Netflix and Amazon even broader opportunities to threaten content producers and cable companies.<\/p>\n

But not every industry stalwart has proven a victim of long tail disruption. Take the management consulting space for example. Leading strategy firms are flourishing, audit firms are investing in their consulting divisions, boutique consultancies are multiplying, and market research firms are coping with the onslaught of online consumer survey platforms. All this comes even amid the rise of internal strategy teams at corporations and the growing ability to find former consultants quickly online.<\/p>\n

These consulting and advisory firms are prospering in a long tail world and are among GLG\u2019s fastest growing clientele. How? They\u2019re adapting to an even more specialized economy by following three key rules:<\/p>\n

1. Go Long Tail \u2013 early<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Advisory firms know clients demand precise insights from the front lines. And while they\u2019re strengthening their own smart teams of industry and functional problem solvers, they cannot hire every niche expert.<\/p>\n

For example, let\u2019s say you\u2019re bidding on a project outlining healthcare supply chain best practices in moving cold and regulated products across country lines. A general knowledge of healthcare supply chains isn\u2019t enough. To power better recommendations, you need insights from supply chain managers experienced with refrigerated products, procurement professionals, and former healthcare regulators.<\/p>\n

As a result, consulting firms are embracing the long tail \u2013 early and often. Clients work with GLG to learn quickly, check assumptions, and pressure-test recommendations. And increasingly, clients are leveraging us during the proposal phase, before a project even starts. They can speak to 10 industry participants in two days, arriving at their first meeting armed with a series of smart questions to challenge prospective clients and increase the likelihood of winning work.<\/p>\n

2. Knowing quant isn\u2019t optional \u2013 add data to back it up<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Another way consultancies are thriving is by adding richer datasets and technology toolkits to their approach. Firms are investing in digital transformation, AI, and machine learning expertise. And surveys have moved well beyond simply canvassing consumers.<\/p>\n

At GLG, we see our clientele increasingly using our platform\u2019s survey capability to poll our 700K+ subject matter experts and professional populations around the world. Conversations provide key insights and voice of the customer \u2013 but B2B surveys and other proprietary datasets add the quantitative fact base to \u201cback it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Don\u2019t just make recommendations \u2013 enable them<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Finally, advisory firms know they need to do more than deliver a PowerPoint deck at the end of a project. They see the benefit in offering an array of enablers to help clients implement their recommendations.<\/p>\n

We see clients leveraging GLG to either place technical executives at client sites to see a recommendation through, or to facilitate workshops pairing client teams with outside senior executives who have implemented related change programs or managed through similar market dynamics.<\/p>\n

By complementing their own teams\u2019 experience with insights, best practices, and lessons learned from the front lines, consultants win credibility with and elicit deeper commitment from C-level executives making bold decisions. And through workshops and \u201cimplementation advisory boards,\u201d firms create a vehicle to stay in touch with clients and further influence the outcome of their work. After all, keeping clients is substantially easier than winning new ones.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next?<\/b><\/p>\n

By following these three rules, today\u2019s consultants are dispelling past critiques of their industry \u2013 that they learned on the client\u2019s dime and that their only deliverable was a PowerPoint placed on a client\u2019s desk. Instead, they\u2019re delivering invaluable, expert-tested advice, quantitative context, and implementation enablers.<\/p>\n

Consultancies are thriving, not by avoiding long tail expertise but by embracing it \u2013 in part by tapping platforms like ours. Firms are marrying their traditional strategy frameworks and problem-solving approaches with a newer role as \u201ccurators\u201d \u2013 assembling and divining takeaways from a more diverse array of human insights and datasets, and offering clients enabling tools to address today\u2019s complicated problems.<\/p>\n

Rather than threatening management consultancies, the long tail is creating\u00a0new<\/i>opportunities to deliver value to clients.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nick Barnard, Managing Director, Professional Services Firms at GLG Every year, as GLG\u2019s Head of Profession […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[579,583],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-op-eds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glginsights.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glginsights.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glginsights.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glginsights.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glginsights.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glginsights.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glginsights.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glginsights.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glginsights.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}