Summary
Rahul Nair explains why clients increasingly expect measurable outcomes from consultants rather than insight alone. He describes AI as an infrastructure layer that changes how consulting work is done, how teams are structured and how value is delivered, with a shift toward outcome-driven engagements and smaller, more senior teams.
Key insights
- Engagements are becoming outcome-driven, not deck-driven.
- The traditional consulting pyramid is starting to invert.
- Senior expertise matters more than large delivery teams.
- Client expectations are rising faster than AI adoption.
- Curiosity, critical thinking and communication define the consultant who thrives.
Full transcript
Automatically generated from the episode audio and lightly edited. About 4,600 words.
The consulting industry is entering a decade where the rules are being written faster than firms can update their playbooks. Welcome to Alt-Consulting Conversations. This series brings together people who are helping us understand what is changing, what is permanent, and how ⁓ next generation of consulting models will take shape. My guest today is someone who has ⁓ career that spans across innovation consulting, venture building, large-scale strategy advisory.
Rahul has over 15 years of experience across entrepreneurship, strategic innovation, business development and venture creation. He began his career as an engineer at Infosys built an equity, broking venture, then moved on to strategy consulting at Innosight and later Monitor Deloitte. He led ventures at Rainmaking APAC, where he worked at the intersection of corporates and startups, spotting and building new business opportunities. Today, he is an expert associate partner at Bain bringing together innovation, venture thinking, and strategy in a way very few professionals can.
Rahul, thank you so much for coming on Alt-Consulting Conversations.
Thanks Utsav, very humbling introductions.
So let's start with the big question. From everything that you have observed across your career in consulting, what do you see as the major shift happening in consulting today? And within those shifts, what looks irreversible and what still feels cyclical or temporary?
Thanks Utsav, it's a deep question there. think if we look at it from a point of view of what is. what's like a long shift which is irreversible to a large extent is clients are increasingly looking for results. They are not looking for nice looking PowerPoint presentations and strategy on a page, but it's gonna be more and more results. So when it comes to large companies, whether it's McKinsey's, Bain's, BCG's of the world, or even the small ones, the whole idea is give me outcomes, give me tangible concrete outcomes that I ⁓ then ⁓ rely on rather than give me pretty PowerPoint presentations. So that's one irreversible trend that I'm seeing.
And the implications of that then applies on what kind of billing that consultant companies can actually do. ⁓ have to put a lot of fee at risk. You have to put a skill in the game. And that is what is evolving the business models quite a bit. ⁓ think that that's the one big thing, as I see as a change. The others that we are seeing are all, ⁓ to extent, ⁓ cyclical they come up and come down but for me that becomes like a very important ⁓ imperative for any consulting company.
Right. And when you sort of look at AI, is an argument that, it's still a productivity tool, speeds up workflows quite significantly. But do you simply look at it as a productivity tool, which what Excel did earlier to people doing using calculators, or you look at it as a more fundamental shift, which sort of changes the way a company runs its operating model.
It's both to an extent, right? I was having this conversation yesterday with some of the colleagues and one of them asked, you so I think Bain might be leading the race when it comes to using AI versus McKinsey or it might be the other way around. My question to them was, know, do you ever say that Bain has better PowerPoint presentations than McKinsey or McKinsey has better Excel models than Bain? You don't.
So you essentially, it's all about using AI as an infrastructure, as a next big tool. that comes in and drives it. The difference is essentially who's using more AI and not using more AI. So that's where the line is drawn. It's not how, whether one is, it's more about are you, is there a density of people who are using AI versus not using AI.
So that is one big difference that I see. Now coming to say that, you is it going to create a significant shift? Yes, because it's not just a tool, it's also an infrastructure. It's like the internet.
There were companies who were not on the internet Now on the internet, there are companies who are leveraging AI to maximize the potential of what they can do versus those who are not. And slowly, it became an imperative for every company the digital transformation stories that has happened, right? So I think from that point of view also, AI is more than just a tool. It's an infrastructure.
It's something that everyone has to adopt in some shape or form. And consulting companies are no different on that front. We have to do it not just for our own execution and operating models, but we also have to use it and help clients use it better. ⁓
Right and that's a thoughtful distinction. So let's go a bit deep on this point. So you and I both have worked in an environment which is shaped by disruptive innovation theory and advising clients on that particular topic. Now through that lens when you interpret consulting, strategy consulting today, some might say it's not a classic disruption because incumbents are not ignoring the shift.
In fact, Bain, BCG, McKinsey are leading the pack.
Ya
the amount of usage they have, the partnerships they have with the AI tool providers far sort of outweighs what any incumbent could do. The kind of skill sets they have is quite differentiating. They're putting their knowledge base on AI systems, which is helping them mine information faster. But there might be still pockets where there is a breakthrough possible for new companies to come in.
So from that lens of disruptive innovation, when you look at what challengers are trying to do versus what incumbents are doing. How do you see the landscape?
Going back to what we said earlier, it all comes down to what is the outcome that you can generate ⁓ that particular client you're working with. ⁓ the performance criteria specifically as we look at it from a disruptive angle, we cannot go and keep on increasing the performance at that point ⁓ space. So ⁓ is the same. If you're still giving me strategy on a page, ⁓ commoditized at this point. So I'm not going to give you a price premium for it, no matter how much more skilled labor you put behind it. ⁓ it will come down to different dimension or a criteria that people are looking at and that criteria is outcome.
If you can guarantee me results ⁓ you can give me a sufficient amount of assurance that this ⁓ is my services will do for you, I'll come to you. And that's what people are going to differentiate on and that's where it will ⁓ lead to lot more number of smaller companies with ⁓ deep expertise partners who have experience ⁓ who can give you that
Yeah.
assurance. One could argue to an extent that the moat that large consulting companies have is essentially the brand name that they have created for themselves which is like you know, Bain said this or McKinsey has given me a guarantee on ⁓ but I think that is also getting diluted to a large extent. You can't rely on that moat quite a ⁓ It's ⁓ at the foundational ⁓ So it comes down to expertise, it comes down to delivering of and if those are the two things that you're doing and customers are valuing more and more of it that's where the price creeps
Yeah. Hmm.
will also go. And then we are looking at cost, like consulting companies cannot increase costs anymore. They have to, they are hitting boundaries and clients are getting much more savvy to say, I don't want to spend so much money ⁓ for a hundred deck, know, like give me outcomes, share this, ⁓ take a skin the game. And that's where the performance dimensions are changing quite a bit in my limited understanding at least. ⁓
Hmm. And you know, that's an interesting point because it takes me to how clients are evaluating consulting service providers now after all the AI tools are available in the market and they can themselves see the effect of the productivity benefits. So in your conversations with clients, senior leaders, how are they valuing different consulting firm offers? One is to look at are you putting skin in the game as you said or outcome based pricing.
But as we know this profession and the kind of output we promise is very difficult to articulate. It's not that tangible. You have to take a leap of faith sometimes with a partner or a consulting firm or you look at the big consulting firms and say, yes, they have done it a hundred times over. So I want to work with them.
But when these new types of AI based consulting companies are coming, yes, they have a few people who have experience of working with the professional service firms of. big brands, but how are they valuing consulting service options that they get right now? Because one might be like a half-million-dollar project and on the other side you have like a 100K ⁓ offer, both are AI tools. So any sort of thoughts, interesting observations you have made in space from a client perspective.
Yeah, I think two things come to mind there. The number one thing is the evaluation is speed. So speed is the number one thing that comes out and how soon can you give me an answer and how good that answer would be. let's put good aside for an extra to a set because you know like you everyone will give you a good answer to some extent but it's a speed with which you can do it specifically if you're looking at ⁓ building as an angle or let's say growth strategy as an angle. ⁓ we're seeing is that I don't know I don't have 16 weeks to do this work. I reduce the time frame right and ⁓ given the business models that typical consulting companies have you can't do that ⁓ because of partial allocation of who you can allocate not allocate etc etc so there's an issue there.
The second thing that we're looking for is I need more senior expertise so don't give me a page with 50 different people on it but give me a page with five people who are going to give get me the depth of what I want to do and I want to see those five people every time I have a meeting with you so it's more and more becoming seniority driven so the pyramid almost is reversing if you may where you need a senior
Hmm.
panel of advisors and a smaller set of doers to an extent because a lot of the doing can be done with AI now. ⁓ I need to do that. Just as when you're asking this question is you know I can create a proposal with Chat GPT and create a deep research report and give a thought piece of paper. The client can then use the same Chat GPT to review that and give it back to me. So where is the expertise going? ⁓ What are we really about?
Right like it's a circular loop of hallucination that's happening. ⁓ The break there
Right.
is what the senior advisor will tell in terms of saying that you hey this is what I think this is the 20 % that's going to give you 80 % value so that if we can bring that out and that comes with a top heavy team which is which is more experience heavy team rather not top heavy team people who have actual schools of experience in clay's language is where value will go and that is what clients are really looking for they are not looking for large teams they are not looking for longer engagements they're looking for outcomes and outcomes that can be assured by experts who have that school of experience. So you could be a person with 20 years of experience in procurement and if you are the right person I'll come to you rather than go to Bain or BCG because you have that experience and you can give that to me in the most appropriate way that that would be useful for me.
Hmm. And what about for areas of expertise where you might not be a subject matter expert in depth in like procurement supply chain or any of that area, ⁓ you are more of a horizontal expert across a range of industries, but you understand the process pretty well. ⁓ And might be, you know, like from experience of working with 20, 30 such clients in that space across the world. So you also carry a different generalistic capability. How do you see those particular sort of people fairing?
⁓ I think for those set of people, it's again comes down to pattern recognition, right? If you're in this industry, you are an intelligent person. have a strong brain. You are able to think. You're able to apply frameworks.
And if you have done sufficient amount of work, ⁓ you're able to recognize patterns. ultimately, it's those patterns that matter. And many times, even if you have the best of AI tools, there's a very good saying, which is ⁓ Gregerson, think, who said that. I'm not sure the names, so don't quote me on it. Questions questions are the answers.
So if you're a person who can ask the right questions, irrespective of what that ⁓ is, you will get to the right answer. And same goes for AI. ⁓ not what the outcome is. It's what's the prompt that's put in. ⁓
. Hmm.
question that you're asking, it's a probe that you're doing and that's where human ingenuity is so so great that AI can't do ⁓ everything that is promising to do at this point because we have to ask those questions. So if you're a consultant who has got that generic experience, has worked across industries and can see patterns and can has a curious mind to understand it better, I don't think there's reason that stops you there.
Hmm Hmm. That's a great answer. And let's sort of take that analogy a bit further. So if you have been a venture builder, done venture building for various industries and different geographies, if you had to build a consulting firm from scratch today, what would you do differently?
How would you set it up?
That's a tough question. I think the basis of competition, sorry, let me reframe that. I would work it in a way where I have significant distribution strength. So it's not about capability.
It's not about what I can do because as we establish, if you're a smart person, you can ask the right questions. You'll be able to figure out what the answer is. If you're someone who has got deep expertise, you might be able to come and give me assurance on what the outcomes could look like. So those things are taken care of.
I think if I'm a venture builder and I want to start a new consulting company, my biggest challenge that I would want to solve
Hmm. Yeah.
is distribution. And what are ways in which I can solve for that distribution? Because that's where it will come down to. Even if I'm a small consulting company, need business, need to get paid, I can solve the problems, but I need to get access.
And if I can solve for access, then I can solve for everything else. So for me, that's the biggest deal killer assumption when it comes to boutique consulting companies or anyone else. Like, how do I solve for distribution? I don't have a good answer for it at this point, but that's where I would start and that's where I will spend most time to figure out how can I solve it.
Hmm. Nice. No, that's but again, know, for the new consulting firm, solving the distribution challenge is pretty hard. So, know, there are ways around it because you don't have the advantage of deep relationship with so many clients.
And yes, you have your capabilities and, your experience which you can speak to and promise speed of delivery. yeah, it's a it's
I don't know if that answers your question, but yeah.
interesting problem to solve on how do you gradually build your distribution network and try to you know penetrate into a larger market.
Yeah. And then just to go a little bit deeper on that, right? ⁓ Like, why is that the biggest moat for a Bain or a BCG or a McKinsey company, right? And if you put yourself in the shoes of a CEO, if I put myself in the shoes of the CEO, the question is, know, like, what are you telling me that will allow me to mitigate the risk? At the end of the day, I can say this was a McKinsey recommendation.
I have acted on it, but I have someone that I can... pass on that risk. So there's a lot of reputation risk that you are looking for insurance and that insurance comes from larger brands if you're putting yourself in the shoes of a CEO who's taking this decision or working with you. Then large companies are actually leveraging that significantly to an extent. how can a small boutique company go and give that kind of assurance? You can't. ⁓ we still have to go back and talk about
Hmm.
problems that large companies are not solving today are not interested in solving today. It's the same minimal example right like what is it that small companies are not doing so as a small boutique AI consulting company I will not go after large scale AI transformations. I will look for areas where I can have significant speed of execution and I can show results very quickly that will allows me to create the credibility to then have those big big challenges that we would solve. So if you cannot solve for distribution let's solve for
Yeah. Hmm.
or tactically go after areas where large companies are not going to work and they cannot do it. Just as an example, we were working with a client and they said, you know, our budget for doing this is $200,000. And we said, you know, that's great, but we can't do that work for you. Our cost model does not allow us to go and work on that case, but we want to help you.
So then the question is, do you want to invest into that relationship and do it, or you want to decline it because you have
Yeah Yeah.
better fishes, bigger fishes to fry. But those are the places where you can, where small companies could really come in and get that access and work out a model which then allows them to go up. So we need to find what those minimal situations are and really disrupt that space. ⁓
Hmm. Yeah Hmm, right. And you know, just taking the point on MiniMill, the whole story of MiniMill was essentially around ⁓ big incumbent organizations not seeing the blind spots and gradually ⁓ certain market segments because they had more profitable segments to focus on. ⁓ if you look at consultants or partners who are ⁓ the large organizations, ⁓ everyone believes AI ⁓ would have a significant role to play in terms of how consulting will be done in future but there are still some blind spots that they might not be seeing so like these could be around how they work what will change what will clients think have some assumptions which might not be accurate so major blind spots that you think seasoned consultants in incumbent firms might be having right now that might you know have a bigger implication at a later stage
Going back to what we said earlier, the blind spot for me is not using AI. And how much are consulting companies actually investing internally to drive that capability, to drive that mindset ⁓ to use AI. Like I'm here in Berlin right now and we're going through some kind of a week long training and nearly 30 % of the training is focused on encouraging people to actually use AI in different ways and experiment with it and not get scared of it. If everyone embraces it,
Hmm.
you get to a stronger place eventually. And I think that's the biggest blind spot if you're not doing it today. And as an individual consultant, it's not that AI will disrupt you. is those who are using AI will disrupt you. So if you have to be a user of AI, just go and be one. then there are multiple productivity hacks.
There multiple ways in which it can useful for you and can speed up the work. So I think for me, that is the blind spot in all circuits. It's non-consumers.
Yeah. name.
in your organization or your biggest land spots.
And on the other spectrum, if we look at consultants who are right now maybe at a junior position or MBA grads which are aspiring to become consultants, for them, because lot of them reach out and they ask for advice, they ask for reference and do you know people in these big firms and how can I join them, what can I do differently? So what advice would you have for junior consultants? We know the pyramid is shrinking, the various analogies there on what's exactly happening there, but
Yeah
all said and done you will not require as many junior consultants as we used to because lot of work can be done faster. So what would you advise them if they want to mark in consulting?
Hmm I think two pieces of advice there. One is those who would really outshine others will do three things really well. One is they're going to be continuously curious. So curiosity will really differentiate them.
Critical thinking will differentiate them. Are they being very critical about whatever is thrown their way? No one can replace that. The third one is communication.
And are you able to read the room and actually talk about things and do a tell a story in the most empathetic way to make sure your audience understands it? So that's one set of things on the soft side that's going to really make a difference for someone who's coming in. The other one is AI is going to do
Hmm.
80 % of your job but your job is to find what's that 20 % that you're putting on top of it. If you're somebody who's just going to regurgitate what AI has told you and what AI has given you then you're not adding any value to it. So for any junior person the challenge is you know what's your value add, what's the 20 % that's going to have the 80 % impact on whatever your work that's assigned your way and I keep telling this to all the interns and juniors that work with me is don't give me a report that's generated by AI, you give me the 20 % on top of that.
Hmm. Hmm. that you asked. ⁓
That puts a stamp of your authority that shows your critical thinking that shows your curiosity that shows your storytelling on that you know that is what will differentiate you as long as that is a muscle that any junior person is in they will build the expertise which eventually is what everyone is looking for as we said
Hmm. And I think if you sort of really start doing that as a junior consultant, I just sort of look back 10, 15 years back when we started consulting, ⁓ we did not have these tools and they were ample opportunities to show our critical thinking. We might just show our sharp Google search in terms of how we have got insights from this site and that site. ⁓ right now that's given. So ⁓ actually becomes quite harder and you might be able to easily filter people are using it more effectively as compared to others. ⁓ It's a good advice and it actually is something which they can practice ⁓ and then ⁓ how they can put it into action. ⁓ with this, ⁓ me conclude the conversation with this last point on you have read the book ⁓ thank you for giving your suggestions.
It helped me sort of ⁓ refine of the content. So what ideas from the book resonated strongly with you?
Two things that resonated with me, I think you made it extremely concrete in terms of the impact that AI can have through the case study of the legal company. I think that was one big thing. The second thing that really resonated with me was this idea of driving adoption in different ways, right? Like, you speak about that through the legal case and other cases as well?
Like, it's less about... it's more about making people use this in a way. So I think those are the two big ideas. And I think the point that you keep making that the clients are eventually going to get sophisticated, smarter, and they would look through and they'll become savvier negotiators what needs to through, right? And the whole idea of having a rocket ship model ⁓ is I'm experiencing it.
I can see ⁓ angles that ⁓ in conversations, even in the current pitch that I'm trying to go for. ⁓ The line is, we give you a very
Hmm.
strong bench of senior expertise that's available for you for this particular case. It's no more saying we have the depth, have 27,000 people, have XYZ, it's more about who's coming to the table on this conversation. So your book really touches upon that point very well on what people are looking to buy. So thank you for writing the book.
It's a very practical tool to understand how one should think about consulting and it's also eye-opening on how people are looking at it. I think it's always good to
Yeah.
good to see the mirror sometimes or be shown the mirror and your book does that really well.
Thank you so much. And I think the point on sophistication, it's the big consulting firms which might make clients more sophisticated because that's also an exit path right now for a lot of senior consultants go and become an in-house strategy expert and maybe stop lot of RFPs which are going out. So on that thought, thank you so much. This was a great, rich, grounded conversation as usual.
And your experience across sort of innovation, venture building, strategy gives you a very unique lens that... very few people have. So thank you for sharing your perspective and I look forward to having such conversations in future. Thank you.
Thank you, Utsav for inviting me.
