The Evolving Landscape of Consulting: Internal vs External Approaches

The consulting landscape is evolving rapidly, with the rise of internal consulting teams. However, external consultants remain essential in many cases. How can businesses navigate this new environment and make the most of both approaches?

The Rise of Internal Consulting

In recent years, the development of internal consulting teams has become a strong trend within many organisations. This shift is driven by three key objectives: reducing the often high costs of external consulting firms, ensuring long-term retention of knowledge gained from projects, and maintaining certain strategic competencies within the company.

Internal consultants offer unique value through their deep immersion in the organisation. Their in-depth understanding of the company's culture and specific challenges allows them to develop solutions that are perfectly tailored to the context. This approach not only generates substantial cost savings over the long term but also provides increased security for confidential projects while ensuring better continuity in the execution of strategic initiatives.

The Strengths of External Consultants

External consulting firms stand out for their ability to bring in specialised and up-to-date expertise across various fields, including ecological transitions, digital transformation, organisational change management, sustainable finance, innovation strategies, and cutting-edge areas like artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

Their external perspective is a major advantage: free from corporate culture and internal biases, they can identify blind spots and propose innovative solutions that internal teams might not conceive. This independence allows them to voice sometimes uncomfortable truths without fearing internal political repercussions.

Additionally, external consultants offer operational flexibility, with the ability to quickly mobilise large teams for short-term needs. This makes them valuable partners for organisations undergoing major strategic transformations.

The Hybrid Model

Ultimately, the debate between internal and external consulting risks diverting attention from what truly matters: businesses are not looking for consulting services but for tangible results. Whether these results come from internal or external teams is secondary as long as business objectives are met effectively.

The most successful companies have recognised this and adopt a pragmatic, results-driven approach where the distinction between internal and external consulting fades in favour of focusing on value creation.

This outcome-oriented vision moves beyond organisational concerns to concentrate on the real impact of initiatives. The key question is not "who" should provide consulting, but "how" to achieve strategic goals with the best combination of available resources. In this perspective, internal and external consulting are no longer opposing categories but complementary tools serving a common ambition: transforming the business to ensure its sustainability and competitiveness in an ever-evolving environment.