What makes this outcome even more likely is that venture-capital firms are highly motivated to invest in talent-and-idea shops. And the easiest way for them to do that is to bundle together smaller consultancies into one entity, to drive business there, and then to take it public to get their money out.
Consultancies like Viant are already publicly traded. Once the partnership model is made obsolete, all consultancies will become publicly traded. And at that point, everybody with cash will be able to put together any combination of consultancies that they think will be especially valuable.
Of course, consultancies aren't the first companies to go through this. It happened to their clients. It happened to other professional-services firms. And now it's happening to McKinsey and BCG and all of the others. The good news for the consultancies is that they've got some very smart people who can figure out what to do next. The bad news is that they've got the worst possible clients: themselves.
John Ellis (jellis@fastcompany.com) is a writer and consultant based in New York City.
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