Two units of gamers have lengthy dominated the consulting world.There may be MBB, which is McKinsey & Firm, Bain & Firm, and Boston Consulting Group. After which there may be the Massive 4: PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, and Ernst & Younger.Now, a brand new wave of AI-driven startups is difficult that dominance by making consulting companies extra accessible.Most of the founders of those new corporations come from the normal consulting realm. They informed Enterprise Insider their experiences not solely give them marketable expertise however have additionally helped them determine new alternatives within the trade.They’re boutique corporations. They’re much smaller than the established ones, typically run by groups starting from only a few folks to a couple hundred. They’re additionally extra specialised, specializing in areas like pricing technique, price discount, or refining slide decks.And, importantly, they’re all in on AI.Lots of them stated their strategies assist them scale back old-school forms, supply extra aggressive charges, and make the human aspect of consulting work simpler.Listed below are eight boutique corporations which are, to various levels, difficult the traditional consulting mannequin.Xavier AIXavier AI describes itself because the world’s first AI technique marketing consultant.In keeping with Joao Filipe, cofounder of Xavier and a former McKinsey marketing consultant, the Xavier AI chatbot can present clear, actionable enterprise information and deliverables, like a 60-page marketing strategy, a gross sales presentation, or an in depth advertising and marketing technique.Filipe stated Xavier AI has its personal proprietary reasoning engine that’s tailored for enterprise use instances and might present detailed sources with out the hallucination you would possibly discover with different chatbots. He stated Xavier can present each technique suggestions and actionable plans for implementation.”99.9% of companies might actually by no means afford McKinsey or any of the MBBs,” Filipe informed BI. “We created Xavier AI in order that anybody might have the facility of a consulting agency at their arms after they want it.”Xavier AI formally launched in April, however Filipe stated he is been piloting it with totally different purchasers, together with a global financial institution utilizing it to analysis potential purchasers and higher perceive their wants.Since its launch, Filipe says enterprise has been booming. He stated the corporate’s income has doubled month over month, and he expects that development to proceed via the remainder of 2025.Consulting IQConsulting IQ was born out of the pandemic as an antidote to the variety of small and midsize companies failing.”We noticed so many small and midsize companies collapsing for causes past their management,” Diego Medone, the founder and CEO of Consulting IQ, informed Enterprise Insider.There are an estimated 400 million firms all over the world, 99% of which belong within the micro, small, or midsize class, Medone stated. However, he stated, 65% of small and midsize companies fade away earlier than 12 months 5.”That is 260 million firms worldwide,” he stated.Medone, a longtime administration marketing consultant who rose to companion at KPMG, started conducting analysis.He stated he and his crew of former McKinsey, BCG, and Bain consultants performed 10,000 interviews with small and midsize firms in the US, Canada, Latin America, Europe, and the Pacific. The goal was to be taught firsthand from enterprise house owners the challenges and dangers they face every day.They used that info to formally launch Consulting IQ in 2024. The platform positions itself as an AI-powered boutique marketing consultant devoted to the wants of small and medium-sized companies.As soon as a person registers on the platform, they supply a number of primary particulars about their enterprise — who they’re, the place they function, and their challenges. Then they’re going to see a listing of over 5,000 preloaded prompts in subjects starting from branding to enterprise technique to gross sales. Customers can converse with the instrument for insights on learn how to optimize their operations.The crew’s consultants are at all times refining the AI platform, Medone stated. “The consultants aren’t doing something manually throughout interactions — that is 100% AI,” he stated. “What they’re doing is completely fine-tuning the algorithms, filtering what’s necessary and what’s not, to keep away from hallucinations and guarantee relevance.”Consulting IQ runs on a subscription mannequin beginning at $9 a month. The Miami-based firm has partnered with Visa, Mastercard, and JPMorgan Chase.PerceptisAlibek Dostiyarov, a former McKinsey marketing consultant, and Yersultan Sapar, a former engineer at Apple, cofounded Perceptis.
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The corporate goals to assist smaller and midsize corporations compete with larger trade gamers by utilizing AI to streamline among the extra tedious processes in consulting, like proposal writing.Perceptis is now centered on the enterprise improvement aspect of consulting. Its AI-powered working system can do trade analysis, determine alternatives that align with their consumer’s skillset and background, and create detailed, customized proposals that the consumer can use to win a job.Dostiyarov informed BI earlier this 12 months that numerous the interior processes accomplished at consulting corporations are heavy with guide labor and “lend themselves virtually completely to what GenAI is able to doing.”He additionally stated Perceptis might make smaller corporations, which do not sometimes have inside AI instruments, extra aggressive available in the market.The corporate informed BI this week that whereas initially serving boutique administration consultancies, it is now shortly increasing to serve IT companies, system integrators, software program builders, monetary companies, design corporations, and actual property businesses.Perceptis had raised $3.6 million in funding as of January.GenpactGenpact, knowledgeable companies firm that expects to generate $5 billion in income this 12 months, has made a serious push over the previous 12 months to place itself as a pacesetter in AI technique.Sanjeev Vohra, the corporate’s chief know-how officer — who spent greater than 20 years at Accenture — stated AI transformations have to start internally.Final 12 months, Genpact launched “Shopper Zero,” an initiative to design, take a look at, and refine AI options in-house earlier than rolling them out to its 800-plus purchasers.One instance is “Amber,” an AI-powered chief listening officer that has dealt with greater than 500,000 worker interactions up to now 12 months.”She’s dynamic. She works 24/7. She does not relaxation, and he or she’s speaking to folks,” Vohra stated. Genpact has additionally deployed a collection of AI finance instruments that it says can lower bill processing from weeks to hours.Since launching Shopper Zero, Vohra stated, Genpact has trimmed almost $40 million from its working bills. Now, the corporate is piloting those self same options with purchasers.Vohra stated purchasers need to see the worth they’re getting from investing on this know-how.”Let’s assume you are spending $100 proper now for a sure course of — can it occur in $80? Can it occur in $70 within the subsequent one or two years?” He stated. “That is what the C-suite is on the lookout for.”SIBSIB focuses on serving to purchasers like restaurant teams, hospitals, universities, and authorities businesses discover financial savings in mounted prices — bills that stay static no matter how a lot an organization produces.SIB CEO Shannon Copeland informed BI that these are sometimes present in areas that “escape scrutiny,” like charges for telecommunications, utilities, waste elimination, transport, and software program licenses. In keeping with his LinkedIn profile, Copeland is an alum of Accenture and Deloitte.SIB has grown since its 2008 launch in Charleston, South Carolina. It is now a nationwide agency serving a whole lot of purchasers, starting from Kroger and Marriott to governments like San Diego County. It not too long ago added over a dozen Fortune 500 firms and personal fairness corporations. Since its launch, SIB says it has recognized greater than $8 billion in price financial savings.Copeland stated that, in contrast to conventional consulting corporations, SIB operates below a contingency mannequin. “If we do not discover financial savings, we do not receives a commission,” he stated, including that the agency does not cost charges upfront.SIB makes use of AI brokers to watch invoices, vendor contracts, and billing patterns. The agency’s consultants use the ensuing insights to barter higher contract phrases or restructure their vendor relationships.”You would consider us as half AI, half old-school operator,” Copeland stated.Along with cost-cutting, the agency additionally focuses on strengthening relationships, a cornerstone of conventional consulting.”We truly encourage distributors and purchasers to return to high-trust, high-accountability partnerships by utilizing information as the start line for higher collaboration,” Copeland stated. “Working with robots truly makes people pay attention to one another extra. It is ironic, but it surely works.”MonevateMonevate’s motto is easy — concentrate on one factor and do it nicely.The agency focuses on pricing technique for software-as-a-service and high-growth tech firms. It additionally works with personal fairness corporations to evaluate the business viability of potential investments.
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In keeping with his LinkedIn profile, James Wilton, an alum of McKinsey, Kearney, and ZS Associates, based Monevate in 2021. Wilton now serves because the Agency’s managing companion. The agency has 16 full-time consultants and has helped over 50 SaaS, tech, and AI firms up to now three years.”Most of our purchasers are backed by enterprise capital or personal fairness, and more and more, we’re working with groups constructing AI merchandise and options,” Wilton informed BI by electronic mail.Wilton stated purchasers normally flip to Monevate after they’ve hit a wall with their present technique as a result of their product has modified or the market has developed. “We design and implement fully-baked pricing methods, together with packaging, worth structure, and worth ranges,” he stated.Wilton stated the impetus to launch the agency got here from the gaps he noticed in conventional consulting. “Purchasers typically complained about suggestions that by no means went anyplace, excessive charges that solely the biggest firms might afford, no pores and skin within the sport, rigid supply fashions, and extremely variable service high quality relying on the crew,” he stated.Monevate retains its focus slim, however that is allowed even its most junior consultants to grow to be “deep pricing consultants,” Wilton stated.He added that the agency’s work is “slim by consulting requirements, and it means strolling away from different kinds of labor, but it surely permits us to be really nice at what we do.”KeystoneKeystone is a method consulting agency that advises know-how firms, life science firms, governments, and legislation corporations. Its purchasers embrace main firms like Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, Intel, Novartis, and Amgen.The agency was based in 2003 by Greg Richards, a mechanical engineer by coaching and an alum of Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, who now serves as an advisor to Harvard Enterprise Faculty, and Marco Iansiti, a physicist and professor at Harvard Enterprise Faculty.Iansiti informed BI that Keystone tends to be extra “geeky and nerdy” than conventional consulting corporations. “We like to type of get deep on the tech aspect of issues,” he stated. The crew consists of information scientists, AI consultants, and lecturers.Whereas many consulting corporations are embracing generative AI, which is usually used to automate day-to-day work like writing emails or reviewing paperwork and contracts, Iansiti stated Keystone is focusing extra on operational AI.Operational AI is used to remodel core enterprise features like managing provide chains, stock, pricing, and forecasting. In 2023, the agency launched “CoreAI,” a crew devoted to utilizing AI to automate and enhance these areas.”We get excited concerning the time period deep enterprise on this,” Iansiti stated. “Deep enterprise is basically the thought of utilizing deep studying fashions which are embedded round essential working processes within the enterprise.”The agency’s “worth add,” he stated, lies in constructing this type of “fairly distinctive operational AI” for its purchasers.Fusion CollectiveFusion Collective is an IT consulting agency that provides a variety of consulting companies to purchasers, together with technique and administration recommendation, cloud transformation, and AI alignment.The agency was based by Blake Crawford, who labored on enterprise structure at MTV Networks and Viacom, and Yvette Schmitter, an alum of Deloitte, PwC, and Amazon Net Providers, the place she led three cloud migrations, together with the biggest within the firm’s historical past.Schmitter stated that in her expertise, purchasers are searching for AI recommendation from consulting corporations earlier than they’re prepared.”Now we have organizations who’re working at 99 miles an hour, hiring these corporations to construct these AI technique paperwork, 165 pages of gorgeous PowerPoints, proper?” she stated. However these firms nonetheless cannot “operationalize” AI, she stated. “Why? As a result of the fundamental infrastructure is not there. Any sort of vulnerability that they’ve in safety, their cloud infrastructure, is simply exacerbated by AI.”Ultimately, purchasers selected consultants based mostly on belief, their networks, and present enterprise relationships, she stated.”I actually consider {that a} true companion is one who’s going to let you know the reality. Inform it like it’s even when it hurts proper?” Schmitter stated. To that finish, she stated she asks purchasers who come to her about AI technique to have a stable grasp of their infrastructure footprint, information governance insurance policies, and safety earlier than they speed up adoption.The underside line is that Fusion Collective likes to maintain its recommendation actual. “If firms haven’t mastered the basics, you are not prepared for AI, and you are not prepared for a military of consultants to return in to do stuff,” Schmitter stated.SlideworksSlideworks is not essentially going after consulting corporations’ enterprise, although it focuses on one thing lots of the massive guys are recognized for: making highly effective slides.Slideworks gives what it calls “high-end” PowerPoint templates and “toolkits” created by former consultants for Bain, BCG, and McKinsey.Whenever you work as a marketing consultant at a top-tier agency, “you might be schooled each day in greatest apply displays and slide design,” the corporate says on its web site. The thought is to supply entry to a library of slides and spreadsheets for areas together with technique, provide chain administration, and “digital transformation.”In a February weblog submit, Alexandra Hazard Kampmann, a Slideworks companion, wrote that “administration consultants are sometimes made enjoyable of as ‘slide monkeys.'” But, she added, the slide is a “essential purpose” why McKinsey and BCG consultants have so many Fortune 500 firms as purchasers.Slideworks gives a “consulting toolkit,” which comprises 205 slides and prices $129. It additionally gives a “consulting proposal,” which has 242 slides plus an Excel mannequin and prices $149.There are additionally operations, mergers and acquisitions, enterprise technique, and product technique templates.Slideworks says it has greater than 4,500 clients globally, together with Coca-Cola, Pfizer, and the professional-services corporations Deloitte and EY.Unity AdvisorySome high UK executives from Ernst & Younger and PwC are becoming a member of forces to launch a brand new agency known as Unity Advisory in June, the Monetary Occasions reported. The agency might be chaired by Steve Varley, who spent almost 19 years at EY, and led by CEO Marissa Thomas, who labored at PwC for over 30 years, based on their LinkedIn profiles.It’s backed by as much as $300 million from Warburg Pincus, a non-public fairness agency, and can concentrate on tax and accounting companies, know-how consulting, and mergers and acquisitions.”CFOs are open to a brand new proposition,” Varley informed the FT. “The Massive 4 are a cultured bunch of service suppliers, however persons are on the lookout for a proposition that’s tremendous client-centric, has actually low administrative price, is AI-led moderately than based mostly on legacy infrastructure and, crucially, has no conflicts.”
