A fresh crop of advisory firms has sprung up in India amid intensifying competition in the sector and the changing nature of work in consultancy services.
Squeezed between the established Big Four and management strategy consulting companies, these mid-tier consulting companies have chalked out a different strategy-offering specialized services to startups and private equity and venture capital firms that are more likely to tap the new cohort.
The founders of this new set of consulting companies cut their teeth inthe established audit and advisory firms, but unlike their larger competitors, they are focussed on offering a select bouquet of services such as managing family offices, risk advisory, and planning initial public offerings (IPOs) instead of providing the gamut of services from IT to audits and consulting.
“The consulting sector grows at almost twice the rate at which the GDP of a country does and therefore there is a lot of work coming in for the newer players as well,” said Jamil Khatri, co-founder and chief of Uniqus Consultech.
Khatri led the assurance practice of KPMG and quit to start Uniqus in 2022.He said Uniqus differentiates itself by specializing in !PO-readiness, finance transformation, artificial intelligence and risk.
“While legacy companies may have some bias for larger brands, startups, PE and VC firms are keen to work with newer consulting companies like us. We are 800 employees with 80 partners, many of whom are from the Big Four,” Khatri said.
In audit and advisory parlance, the Big Four are EY, KPMG, Deloitte and PwC, firms that were predominantly audit companies but expanded over the years into advisory services. Armed with thousands of partners, these giants together employ around 200,000 people.
Calling card
According to executives, the newer crop of consulting companies picks uppartners from larger firms, luring themwith prospects of building their own portfolios, the opportunity of
acquiring equity in the new company and more independence. The calling card of the new ventures includes a more agile workplace where there is little hierarchy and decision-making lies largely in the hands of the partners.
“Many of the Big Four senior partners we hire are from the audit teams whowant to work in the consulting sectorand do not want any conflict of interest, which is common if you are in the audit team of a firm,” said Khatri. “We manage to hire without a significant raise but what we offer additionally is equity, which can remain invested in the company even when the partner leaves.”
For the newer lot, the role of consultants has changed in many ways since the pandemic. Global wars, businesses going digital, a hazy vision of business cycles given the tariff wars and geopolitical strains along with the impact of artificial intelligence have led advisory firms to rejig their offerings to clients.
Making adjustments
While boutique consulting firms are getting aggressive, the established ones are going through their own adjustments. PwC India struck a joint venture with PwC US Advisory, prompting rivals to reassess ties with their own offshore units.
Driven by Al’s disruption of traditional consulting and fiercercompetition for US-based global capability centre clients, the move signals a broader shift toward merging onshore-offshore advisory operations.
Source: Mint
