Best of LinkedIn: Strategy & Consulting CW 08/ 09

00:00:00: Provided by Thomas Allgaier and Frennus, based on the most relevant LinkedIn posts about strategy in consulting from CW eight and nine.

00:00:07: Frenness specializes in BW market research for strategy and consulting teams with a focus on tech and ICT

00:00:14: And our mission for this deep dive is to take a stack of curated linkedin insights from calendar weeks eight and Nine of twenty-twenty six and really extract The absolute most important intelligence for you.

00:00:26: if your operating an M&A private equity venture cash capital or consulting, you know there is just a massive amount of noise out there.

00:00:33: We want to cut through it and find the actual signals that impact how you build and protect

00:00:37: value.".

00:00:38: I couldn't agree more!

00:00:50: From there, we'll see how that bleeds into operating model and execution.

00:00:54: And finally it will zoom out to look at the macro environment resilience and some major sector shifts.

00:00:59: It's a really compelling stack of insights.

00:01:01: today.

00:01:01: There are real structural shift happening so let get right in.

00:01:05: Okay lets unpack this Starting with consulting craft & talent.

00:01:09: If you read through time lines lately There is almost palpable sense anxiety about traditional tool kit.

00:01:17: I was reading a post from James O'Dowd that genuinely stopped me in my tracks.

00:01:21: He was talking about client payment preferences shifting, and he used this term talent debt.

00:01:25: Talent debt right?

00:01:26: And he estimates that seventy to eighty percent of what clients historically paid for which is basically just execution scale Is becoming entirely commoditized by automation.

00:01:35: That's seventy-to-eighty percent figure should be a massive wake up call For any partner listening Right now.

00:01:40: i mean if your firm's margin is built on an army Of junior analysts billing hours just to, you know, trace spreadsheets and compile reports.

00:01:49: You are holding massive talent debt.

00:01:51: Oh God looks a brilliant comparison between that failing traditional pyramid model and what he calls the new West Coast tech model

00:01:58: which is fundamentally different because The west coast model doesn't rely on throwing junior ours at a problem to scale does it?

00:02:05: Not at all.

00:02:06: they scale by using commercial orchestrators.

00:02:09: instead of doing the manual labor these orchestrators sit on top of AI tools.

00:02:13: They can deliver comprehensive due diligence or compliance checks, or deep financial reporting in literally minutes rather than weeks.

00:02:21: The value isn't the execution of a task anymore—the value is entirely in orchestration to achieve that desired

00:02:28: outcome.".

00:02:28: Wait, so if execution is completely commoditized and AI's doing the heavy lifting are we just engineering The Human Consultant out of the equation entirely?

00:02:37: Because Saya Ganbari posted a really fascinating counterpoint to that narrative.

00:02:41: She actually argued that human skills Are becoming the ultimate differentiator in this A.I era.

00:02:46: Well

00:02:46: That's an interesting pivot.

00:02:47: how does she frame that differentiation?

00:02:49: well...she points directly To things AI fundamentally cannot do.

00:02:53: can you read the room during a really tense merger integration?

00:02:57: How good are you at storytelling to get a hesitant board actually on-board with the strategy?

00:03:02: Do you understand the complex, often completely irrational personalities involved in a stakeholder matrix.

00:03:08: Her argument is that navigating those messy purely human elements Is what actually drives The project over the finish line

00:03:15: Spot On and That connects perfectly To how we staff these projects.

00:03:20: Errol Gardner was discussing the power of multi generational teams recently.

00:03:24: He makes the case that you actually need a blend of seasoned leaders and digital native young graduates to win right now.

00:03:30: Because The Young Grads are the ones bringing the Native AI skills to the table.

00:03:34: Partly, but it's deeper than just technical skills!

00:03:37: The Young grads are much less constrained by legacy assumptions.

00:03:41: They aren't tied to that whole.

00:03:42: this is how we've always done at mentality.

00:03:44: Gardner points out That This Naturally Leads To Active Reverse Mentoring.

00:03:48: Oh

00:03:48: I love that concept.

00:03:49: Yeah, the junior staff actually mentor partners on new ways of orchestrating work while the seasoned partners apply their pattern recognition and industry wisdom to guide it safely.

00:04:00: When you mix that fearlessness with harder experience… You get tangible outcomes!

00:04:05: Speaking of tangible human outcomes, Wang and Kit Chiang shared a story that just perfectly illustrates why the human element matters so much.

00:04:14: And it wasn't about a massive tech firm—it was actually about one hundred-and-one year old optician business called New China Optical!

00:04:20: One Hundred-And-One Years Old?

00:04:22: That's incredible!

00:04:22: Right —so he went in with broken pair glasses right before big business trip expecting to see typical transactional retail experience.

00:04:30: Let me guess... They immediately tried to upsell them on the most expensive expedited frames they had.

00:04:35: Exactly the opposite!

00:04:37: The optician, CY didn't try push expensive titanium frames at all.

00:04:42: Instead she focused entirely on user journey.

00:04:45: She prioritized his daily comfort over her immediate profit margin.

00:04:49: let him try on thirty different frames without rushing Him and then actually worked with Her lab to fast-track the supply chain getting His lenses done in three days instead of The usual five.

00:04:58: that is just a brilliant microcosm Of modern business strategy empathy.

00:05:03: Is the ultimate differentiator

00:05:04: exactly?

00:05:05: She unused it to prove that if you lead with the client's actual needs rather than what your firm is currently incentivized to sell them, You create an advocate for life.

00:05:14: But y'know... That requires a massive shift in how we train people.

00:05:18: Taonga Ms.

00:05:18: Satika recently shared takeaways from his time at Deloitte noting that clarity is super powering consulting and simply never stop learning!

00:05:25: You have to adapt constantly.

00:05:27: Which brings us directly into the elephant-in-the room when talking about adapting.

00:05:32: Pricing Oh yeah The billable hour

00:05:35: Right.

00:05:36: Ritesh Saikdeva posed some very provocative questions recently, essentially asking if the sheer efficiency of these AI investments fundamentally breaks the billable hour?

00:05:46: If a complex task takes three minutes instead of three weeks you simply can't bill by the hour anymore.

00:05:51: So how are firms actually adapting to that reality?

00:05:54: Are we seeing real shift in pricing models yet?

00:05:56: Slowly Very slowly.

00:05:59: Brendan Williams shared some compelling data showing that outcome-based pricing, or OBP is still vastly underused across the industry.

00:06:06: The awareness is definitely there but actual adoption is very shallow.

00:06:09: Why the hesitation?

00:06:10: Both buyers and providers are terrified of a mutual risk.

00:06:13: But if you're commoditizing your execution Figuring out how to price for outcomes Is going be defining challenge For consulting over next few years.

00:06:22: That feels like perfect time To look inward at our second theme operating model and execution, because figuring out how to price for outcomes naturally forces us to look at how we actually execute the work.

00:06:34: Everyone on my feed is talking about AI transformation but it seems like execution is where these firms are violently hitting a wall.

00:06:40: Tanya W published apiece arguing that an AI first strategy is actually the worst strategy you can possibly have.

00:06:47: It sounds super counterintuitive given all of market hype right now But her logic is incredibly sound.

00:06:53: AI is an amplifier.

00:06:54: Right, it just scales whatever you already are

00:06:56: Exactly.

00:06:57: she pointed out that if your internal process is messy AI Just makes it messy at a terrifying speed.

00:07:03: the underlying constraint has to be solved first.

00:07:06: If you have a lack of capability or really poor process design Or vague ownership throwing AI added just burns cash.

00:07:13: You have to solve the business problem first not just implement The technology for the sake.

00:07:17: What's fascinating here is how Olivier Gomez builds on that exact sentiment.

00:07:21: Gomez argues that AI is no longer just a strategic talking point for the board, it is a core operating capability

00:07:27: and That changes the whole dynamic of how you manage It

00:07:30: really does.

00:07:30: he issued A stark warning.

00:07:32: He said if Ai runs your operations but You outsource The orchestration Of that ai to a third party?

00:07:39: You don't control Your company anymore.

00:07:42: Outsourcing the execution means you are literally outsourcing your competitive advantage.

00:07:48: But maintaining that control is incredibly tricky when we don't even know how our teams use it on a daily basis.

00:07:56: Visis Argelwal brought up this wild concept of secret cyborgs, have you seen these?

00:08:00: The

00:08:00: employees actively hiding their AI usage... Yes

00:08:04: Because firms still measure performance by billable hours and utilization targets, employees are secretly using AI to do their jobs in a fraction of the time.

00:08:13: But they're hiding it from management to protect their own metrics.

00:08:16: Agarwal points out that if you reward people purely for working You just get the appearance of working And all that massive enterprise value that AI could create stays completely trapped at the individual level.

00:08:26: That is fundamental metrics problem!

00:08:29: You can't manage what you don't accurately measure

00:08:31: Exactly.

00:08:32: Brian Elliott echoed this perfectly.

00:08:34: He pointed out that tracking AI adoption rates, like how many people logged into Co-Pilot today is just the new badge swipe.

00:08:41: It's an activity metric, not a business outcome metric.

00:08:45: How should leaders be measuring it then?

00:08:46: What is the right

00:08:47: approach?

00:08:48: Elliott highlighted a fantastic real-world example from Zapier's customer service team.

00:08:53: They didn't just track who was logging into their AI tools.

00:08:56: they measured actual business outcomes By integrating AI in to work flows saw a fifty percent reduction in ticket handle time.

00:09:03: Wow!

00:09:04: Fifty percent

00:09:05: Yeah.

00:09:05: But more importantly they saw massive twenty to thirty point boosts in employee engagement.

00:09:10: They didn't just make the work faster, they removed daily drudgery and made it better.

00:09:15: That's incredible!

00:09:17: But if everyone across an industry starts using these exact same tools to optimize their works... Do we run into what Dan Diazio calls this sameness trap?

00:09:25: He argues that If you defer to AI too early in creative or strategic process You trade original human insight for polished sameness.

00:09:33: You lose your competitive edge because output looks exactly like your competitor's output.

00:09:38: It is a huge structural risk.

00:09:40: To prevent that sameness, and really to manage the chaos of implementation Angela Zudavurn recommends taking a highly disciplined portfolio approach.

00:09:48: She points to Lloyd's Banking Groups Gen AI Control Tower as gold standard for this.

00:09:53: How does the control tower work?

00:09:55: You basically don't treat all AI projects the same.

00:09:57: Yeah you divide your initiatives into distinct categories.

00:10:00: They use game-changing bets targeted solutions And everyday quick wins.

00:10:04: Each category gets completely different level governance funding and risk

00:10:09: tolerance.

00:10:09: And we are seeing massive targeted solutions hitting the ecosystem right now to support this.

00:10:14: if you aren't MNA, The scale of the tech being deployed is just breathtaking.

00:10:19: Matt Wood in Catherine Kaminski shared insights on PwC's new FRTRAI.

00:10:24: FRTR stands for from Rose To Reasoning.

00:10:27: What makes FRTR different?

00:10:28: From Just firing up a standard language model.

00:10:30: it can reliably reason over massive analyze spreadsheets.

00:10:35: We're talking across multiple sheets with deep conditional logic baked in.

00:10:41: And it does that three times higher accuracy than previous methods, so if I'm a junior analyst used to spending weeks doing manual tracing during due diligence this tool is.

00:10:55: Srin Subra was just detailing a new AI tool specifically designed for PE firms to diagnose finance functions.

00:11:02: Instead of a consultant flying out to interview the executive team, The tool uses AI driven interviews with CFOs and controllers.

00:11:10: It does the interviews autonomously Yeah

00:11:12: it autonomously synthesizes in maturity profile And spits out a prioritized improvement roadmap.

00:11:17: that's wild.

00:11:18: And Bill Briggs mentioned Deloitte is pushing something similar with their Enterprise AI Navigator, which has explicitly designed to pull AI out of isolated pilot labs and orchestrate workflow redesign across the entire enterprise.

00:11:29: But taking this enterprise-wide introduces some really serious governance issues.

00:11:34: Gina Primo and Jason M. Garzadas from Deloitte discussed the risk paradox for chief strategy officers.

00:11:40: CSOs are being asked by the board to lead corporate reinvention, but only twenty eight percent of them actually co-lead AI decisions right now.

00:11:48: That is a total recipe.

00:11:51: Moving incredibly fast, without clear decision rights creates massive fragmented risk across the entire organization.

00:11:58: You have marketing buying one tool HR buying another and none of it speaks to each other.

00:12:03: So how do you actually reign that in?

00:12:05: Without stifling the innovation you need to stay competitive?

00:12:08: Gideon Slivkin framed this perfectly.

00:12:10: he argues This is exactly where enterprise architecture comes in.

00:12:14: think about Enterprise architecture like city planning.

00:12:16: If every department builds their own AI skyscrapers without talking to each other, eventually the city's plumbing explodes.

00:12:23: The goal of enterprise architecture is to optimize decisions for the whole enterprise not just local silos.

00:12:28: it sets common standards so that one rogue business unit doesn't add millions in technical debt to the firm.

00:12:34: Here's where it gets really interesting.

00:12:36: let's pivot to our third and final theme macro resilience and sector shifts because you can have the best enterprise architecture in the world, but if the geopolitical ground shifts beneath you it just doesn't matter.

00:12:49: Steve Kershaw, Kai Engel and Andres Havas all share takeaways from The Munich Security Conference –and the throughline was undeniable–the global leadership narrative has decisively shifted from security to

00:13:01: resilience.".

00:13:02: That shift is a crucial distinction for anyone allocating capital right now.

00:13:06: Security implies building a wall.

00:13:09: Resilience acknowledges that the threats, whether they are cyber attacks geopolitical shocks or climate disasters Are going to breach the wall eventually?

00:13:17: The question is do you have the capacity To absorb the shock and keep operating right.

00:13:21: And Peter Jonathan Jameson put some incredibly stark numbers to this.

00:13:25: regarding Climate data He noted that delaying climate action in Denmark cost an estimated four hundred and thirty million dollars annually.

00:13:32: he framed it so clearly The real comparison isn't the cost of climate action versus no-action.

00:13:39: The real Comparison is planned investment vs uncontrolled

00:13:42: loss."

00:13:43: And that uncontrolled LOSS isn't just theoretical modeling anymore, it's manifesting in hard regulatory penalties today!

00:13:50: Sean McHale pointed out that the European Central Bank just fined credit Agricole €七 point six million because they failed to properly enforce Climate Risk Expectations.

00:14:04: preparedness protects value.

00:14:06: We're

00:14:06: also seeing intense volatility in specific sectors based on these macro shifts.

00:14:11: look at software and tech.

00:14:12: Barry Jaber and Christophe DeVeusser noted that the recent sell-off in software stocks isn't just standard market jitters.

00:14:19: Investors are asking deep structural questions about whether AI is going to fundamentally remove work from traditional SaaS workflows, if AI agents do the work?

00:14:27: Do we even need the software

00:14:28: seats?".

00:14:29: It's a complete structural reevaluation of the sector...and we're seeing similar tectonic shifts.

00:14:35: Alina Gerlich issued a three point one trillion dollar warning for the food industry.

00:14:40: Health and nutrition has quietly become an eight hundred billion dollar battleground, she shared an incredible story about way to illustrate how fast value can migrate Way

00:14:48: like byproduct of making cheese

00:14:51: exactly that way used to be considered low-value waste product of cheese production but because of the massive rise in global protein economy we now generates more economic value than the cheese itself.

00:15:03: The byproduct literally became the core asset.

00:15:07: Value is migrating faster than corporate strategies can even track

00:15:10: it.".

00:15:11: That's just wild, and connects perfectly to Chris A's insight on fast-moving consumer goods sector.

00:15:17: He points out that global FMCG companies are sitting on fifty thousand plus guise but they have a staggering failure rate of over seventy percent for new products.

00:15:26: His argument is that the issue isn't a lack of innovation,

00:15:37: it's For

00:15:56: those who don't track the acronyms daily, The Supreme Court just struck down the use of IEPA tariffs.

00:16:02: The International Emergency Economic Powers Act which presidents have historically used to regulate commerce during emergencies.

00:16:09: because that was struck down it immediately led to a new temporary ten percent global levy.

00:16:15: now To be clear we aren't taking sides on the politics of this.

00:16:18: We're just looking at the raw data and the impact.

00:16:21: And Meaghan Martin-Schumberger noted that this sudden policy shift is sending fresh tremors through global supply chains as companies frantically try to front run the changes.

00:16:29: And, The narrative across the Atlantic is equally intense.

00:16:32: Leaders like Levante Yanniscoody and Michael Briggle are stressing that high tech innovation isn't just an economic nice to have anymore.

00:16:39: it's a make or break sovereignty question for Germany and the broader European continent

00:16:44: which is driving some truly surprising sector pivots.

00:16:48: Dr.

00:16:48: Andres Demleitner shared insights from a PWC roundtable in Nuremberg that explored how mid-sized enterprises and startups are actively eyeing the defense sector as a highly viable growth path, they're moving defense out of purely military conversation integrating it directly into their core industrial growth strategy.

00:17:08: It all comes down to restructuring foundations on how these businesses operate.

00:17:12: Arjun Singh touched this beautifully.

00:17:14: regarding banking He noted that true banking transformation requires structural changes to the actual plumbing of the institution.

00:17:23: He cited Weobank changing their core economics from bottom up.

00:17:26: It's not just about slapping a cosmetic digital app on top of legacy processes, it is fundamentally rewiring the operating model.

00:17:32: So as we look at this whole landscape how do you pull us together for people listening?

00:17:36: If we synthesize everything we've unpacked today From the commoditization of consulting execution to massive shifts in macro-resilience, a very clear picture emerges for you as professional.

00:17:47: Strategy is no longer periodic annual offsite exercise.

00:17:51: it's continuous highly dynamic process.

00:17:55: success right now about having rigorous governance required scale AI out pilot phase simultaneously building resilience necessary whether structural geopolitical shift.

00:18:06: I'll leave with this thought.

00:18:08: If AI is successfully commoditizing your execution and macro resilience, it's simply the new baseline for survival.

00:18:14: What Is The True Irreplaceable Scarcity in Your Firms Operating Model Right Now?

00:18:19: And Who Is Responsible For Protecting

00:18:33: It?