--- title: "The Best Consulting Transformation I've Ever Seen: They Stopped Selling Hours" description: Discover how a data consultancy transformed its business model and stopped selling hours. image: https://www.thevisibleauthority.com/hubfs/Blog/Why%20Vertical%20Service%20Integration%20Is%20the%20Future%20of%20Growth%20for%20Boutique%20Consultancies.png --- [![logo in front white\_mobile](https://www.thevisibleauthority.com/hubfs/Logos%20TVA/Logo/logo%20in%20front%20white_mobile.svg "logo in front white_mobile")](https://thevisibleauthority.com) [![the visible authority ](https://www.thevisibleauthority.com/hubfs/Identity/Logo/logo%20and%20text%20white_nobackground.svg "the visible authority ")](https://thevisibleauthority.com) - [About us](https://www.thevisibleauthority.com/about) - [Insights](https://www.thevisibleauthority.com/blog) - [Contact](https://www.thevisibleauthority.com/support-request) # The Best Consulting Transformation I've Ever Seen: They Stopped Selling Hours ![Luk Smeyers](https://www.thevisibleauthority.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Images%20of%20Luk/Luk%20Smeyers.png?width=56&name=Luk%20Smeyers.png) [Luk Smeyers](https://www.thevisibleauthority.com/blog/author/luk-smeyers) 13 November 2026 *How a generic data and analytics consultancy progressively built a highly profitable, proposition-led business, without putting its existing revenue at risk.* Selling consulting hours is becoming an increasingly vulnerable business model. For decades, consulting firms have relied on a relatively straightforward growth formula: sell more projects, hire more consultants, and increase revenue. When demand was strong, and clients were willing to pay for capacity, the formula worked reasonably well. But the limitations are becoming painfully obvious. Pricing pressure is increasing, clients are questioning how much effort they should pay for, and generating profitable growth through additional headcount is getting harder. Yet many consulting firms continue to operate with essentially the same commercial model. A few years ago, we worked with a data and analytics consultancy that chose a different path. The founders were already running a profitable business, with a growing team and an established client base, and had no intention of risking it. Nevertheless, over three years, they fundamentally changed how they sold, delivered, and monetised their expertise. Today, their business looks very different. Their margins have continued to improve, their Revenue per FTE trend has increased significantly, and their growth has become far less dependent on adding consultants. Here's how they did it. ## A promising business hidden inside a generic consultancy When we first met the founders, their consultancy operated in the highly competitive data and analytics market. They offered a broad range of services, supporting clients with different analytical challenges. Like thousands of other consulting firms, they primarily sold their expertise and their consultants' capacity. However, a more specialised business had already been developing inside the consultancy for some time. One of the founders had a strong background in sales forecasting, and over the previous two years, they had deliberately invested in this expertise, recruited several specialists, and completed a growing number of sales forecasting projects. These projects were highly profitable, clients were extremely satisfied, and the consultancy was developing increasingly valuable expertise. The founders had good reasons to believe that sales forecasting could become a much bigger business, but externally, very little had changed. They continued to present themselves as a generic data and analytics consultancy, offering a broad set of capabilities to different types of clients. Their main concern was the possibility of losing existing revenue if they committed too visibly to a narrower specialisation. The founders understood the commercial potential of their sales forecasting expertise, but openly committing to it meant making difficult choices about their other services, potential clients, marketing efforts, and future investments. For two years, they had been investing in the consulting business they wanted to become, while continuing to sell the consulting business they were afraid to leave behind. This is a situation we encounter regularly. Consulting leaders recognise a promising opportunity inside their business but hesitate to make it their primary market proposition because they worry that concentrating on a narrower set of problems and clients will limit growth or jeopardise existing revenue. That hesitation can persist for years, even when the commercial evidence is already available. ## Crossing the most difficult chasm The founders contacted TVA because they wanted help validating their direction and making the transition in a controlled way. We started by reviewing their most successful client engagements, examining which types of projects had generated the strongest financial results, the most positive client feedback, and the greatest potential for repetition. The sales forecasting engagements stood out immediately. They consistently generated excellent profitability, supported premium pricing, and produced strong client outcomes. While the founders already knew these projects were successful, our review helped establish the evidence needed to support a much bigger strategic decision. Together, we worked on the foundations of a specific consulting proposition, centred on sales forecasting for multinational supermarket chains. The choice of client segment mattered enormously because, instead of approaching any organisation with a forecasting challenge, the consultancy would concentrate its expertise, methods, and commercial activities on a clearly defined market with recurring, high-value problems. This required a considerable mental shift. The founders had to overcome their fear of becoming too specialised and accept that some existing work would gradually disappear as they committed to the new direction. I often describe this as the chasm consulting firms need to cross when moving towards a proposition-led business. The potential is visible, some of the expertise is already available, and the early evidence may even be compelling. Nevertheless, committing to a different business model requires decisions that feel commercially risky, particularly when the existing business is still generating healthy revenues. For this consultancy, crossing that chasm was the turning point. Once the founders committed to developing sales forecasting as their central proposition, the initial commercial transition moved relatively quickly. ## Year one: building a different commercial foundation During the first year, the consultancy made substantial progress in replacing its generic capacity-led offering with a dedicated sales forecasting proposition. The new approach was designed around a specific client problem, a clearly defined outcome, and a repeatable way to deliver it. A crucial element was developing a core technology platform. Rather than designing an entirely new technical solution for every client, the firm built a reusable platform that could be configured for each supermarket chain's specific data environment and business requirements. Engineers and data analytics specialists worked closely with clients to implement the solution, configure the necessary data connections, test the forecasting models, and ensure the system performed reliably. Once implemented, the consultancy continued to operate and improve the solution through managed services. This created a fundamentally different commercial model in which clients paid a fixed fee for the initial implementation, followed by recurring managed-services fees. The consultancy was progressively replacing the sale of individual consultants' time with a repeatable, outcome-driven service. Substantial engineering and analytical expertise remained necessary, of course. Client environments differed, data needed preparation, and successful implementation required close collaboration. However, the firm was no longer selling generic capacity as its primary offering. It was selling a proven solution to a high-value business problem, supported by a repeatable platform and expert delivery. Importantly, the consultancy had already completed several successful sales forecasting engagements, which meant the initial proposition was built on practical experience and demonstrated results rather than assumptions. ## The three-year transition: fading out the old, fading in the new The initial shift happened relatively quickly, but completing the transformation took approximately three years for two important reasons. First, the consultancy needed to progressively replace its existing portfolio of standalone data and analytics projects. Those projects were still generating revenue and profit, and abandoning them abruptly would have been financially irresponsible, particularly while the firm was investing in its platform, specialist expertise, and new operating model. Instead, the founders gradually reduced their dependency on unrelated engagements as the new proposition gained commercial traction. The old business model faded out while the new one expanded, protecting overall revenue and profitability throughout the transition. Second, the founders had a much bigger ambition than sales forecasting alone. They recognised that the platform and client data environment could become the foundation for additional, highly valuable services, allowing them to progressively expand their commercial offering without repeatedly starting from scratch. This is where the economics became particularly interesting. ## One platform, multiple high-value services Sales forecasting was the foundational service, and implementing it required substantial work: integrating the client's data sources, preparing and transforming data, configuring the platform, establishing forecasting models, and validating the results. Once that foundation was operational, however, it created opportunities to solve several additional problems for the same supermarket clients. Over the three-year period, the consultancy progressively developed five connected services: 1. **Store inventory management.** Using sales forecasts to optimise stock levels, reduce overstocking, and improve product availability. 2. **Shopper segmentation.** Analysing purchasing patterns and customer behaviour to identify meaningful shopper groups and improve commercial decisions. 3. **Pricing optimisation.** Combining forecasting information and customer insights to support pricing decisions and improve profitability. 4. **Store layout optimisation.** Using sales and shopper data to improve store layouts, product placement, and sales performance. 5. **Fraud and theft detection analytics.** Comparing expected and actual sales patterns to identify anomalies and potential losses. Each additional service required further development, analytical methods, and data transformations, but they were all built on the same underlying foundation. The consultancy no longer had to start from scratch whenever a client wanted to address another problem because much of the platform, data environment, client knowledge, and accumulated expertise was already available. This approach allowed the additional services to be developed and delivered with increasing efficiency. We refer to this as *vertical service integration*: progressively developing connected services within a specific domain, building on the foundations and expertise already established. It also changed the commercial dynamics. Once clients experienced the benefits of accurate sales forecasting, discussing the next opportunity became significantly easier because the consultancy was already familiar with their operations, understood their data, and had demonstrated its ability to deliver. The relationship could progressively expand into additional high-value areas, often leading to multi-year collaborations. Instead of continuously searching for unrelated projects, the firm could generate increasing value from a relatively concentrated group of clients. As a result, business development became more efficient, client retention improved, and recurring revenues became a substantial part of the business. ## The financial results: a radically improving Revenue per FTE trend The commercial and operational consequences were substantial. The initial sales forecasting engagements had already generated strong margins, but as the firm developed its platform, improved its delivery methods, and expanded its connected services, those margins continued to improve. Repetition played a crucial role in this development because every additional engagement contributed to the consultancy's expertise. Delivery processes became more efficient, technical components more reusable, and client-specific configuration more predictable, allowing the firm to deliver greater value without proportionally increasing delivery effort. One financial indicator stood out in particular: the Revenue per FTE trend increased radically throughout the three-year transition. For us, this is one of the most important indicators of consulting business model improvement. When revenue growth continuously requires comparable headcount growth, the business remains dependent on selling additional human capacity. Conversely, when revenue per full-time equivalent increases over time, it signals that the consultancy is finding more productive ways to monetise its expertise. In this case, the improvement was supported by premium pricing, reusable technology, increasingly efficient delivery, recurring managed services, and the expansion of existing client relationships. The firm continued to employ engineers and analytics experts, but its growth was becoming progressively less dependent on hiring additional people. This represented a fundamentally different economic trajectory from the generic capacity-led business with which the founders had started. ## The next step: performance-based incentives More recently, the founders have started exploring another development in their commercial model. Over the years, the consultancy's forecasting solutions have produced increasingly reliable and predictable outcomes, creating an opportunity to introduce performance-based incentives alongside the initial fixed implementation fee and recurring managed-services fee. They have already tested this approach with several new clients, who have signed up for the model. This is an important development, but it requires some context. We regularly warn consulting firms against rushing into performance-based pricing when they lack repeatable delivery methods, reliable outcome evidence, or sufficient control over the results, because performance-based compensation can introduce considerable financial risk when those foundations are missing. This consultancy has spent years building precisely those foundations. Its platform, accumulated data, delivery experience, and proven forecasting performance have made certain outcomes sufficiently predictable to consider sharing in the financial upside. Performance incentives are therefore becoming an additional revenue opportunity, rather than a replacement for its established commercial model. It is a logical progression that demonstrates how a carefully designed proposition can progressively create more options for capturing value. ## What consulting leaders can learn from this transformation Several lessons emerge from this case, but three stand out.   1\. Existing foundations. The foundations of a stronger consulting proposition may already exist inside the firm. The opportunity does not necessarily require inventing an entirely new service because, in many cases, the most attractive business is already emerging through repeated, successful engagements. 2\. Deliberate choices. Making the transition requires deliberate choices. The founders could have continued expanding their generic analytics business or applied their forecasting expertise to fashion retailers, e-commerce companies, and numerous other sectors. Instead, they concentrated on multinational supermarket chains and progressively expanded the value they could deliver to those clients. 3\. Financially manageable transition. The transformation must be economically manageable. This firm couldn't afford to abandon its existing revenue while investing heavily in future business, so the founders moved progressively, protecting financial performance while developing a stronger, more scalable commercial model. The results became visible in their margins, profitability, client retention, and, particularly, their radically improving revenue-per-FTE trend. We call this progressive transition **The Shift**: moving from selling capabilities and capacity towards a business built on specific client problems, proven outcomes, repeatable expertise, and increasingly attractive economics. This case illustrates how far that transition can go. The founders started with a generic data and analytics consultancy, developed a strong sales-forecasting proposition, built a reusable platform, expanded into connected services, and progressively redesigned their revenue model. Three years later, they had built a very different business, one that sells value with greater confidence, delivers with increasing efficiency, and can grow without continuously expanding its headcount at the same rate. It all began with a difficult decision: to build the business around the client problem they already knew they could solve exceptionally well. ![Luk Smeyers](https://www.thevisibleauthority.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Images%20of%20Luk/Luk%20Smeyers.png?width=66&name=Luk%20Smeyers.png) [Luk Smeyers](https://www.thevisibleauthority.com/blog/author/luk-smeyers) Luk’s extensive career in the consulting business, which spans more than 20 years, has seen him undertake a variety of influential positions. He served as the European CHRO for Nielsen Consulting (5,000 consultants in the EU), founded iNostix in 2008—a mid-sized analytics consultancy—and led the charge in tripling revenue post-acquisition of iNostix by Deloitte (in 2016) as a leader within the Deloitte analytics practice. His expertise in consultancy performance improvement is underlined by his former role on Nielsen's acquisition evaluation committee. After fulfilling a three-year earn-out period at Deloitte, Luk harnessed his vast experience in consultancy performance improvement and founded TVA in 2019. His advisory firm is dedicated to guiding consulting firms on their path to becoming high-performing firms, drawing from his deep well of consulting industry expertise and financial acumen. Share this article on [mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20The%20Best%20Consulting%20Transformation%20I've%20Ever%20Seen:%20They%20Stopped%20Selling%20Hours%20&body=Check%20out%20https://www.thevisibleauthority.com/blog/the-best-consulting-transformation-ive-ever-seen-they-stopped-selling-hours](mailto:?subject=Check%20out%20The%20Best%20Consulting%20Transformation%20I've%20Ever%20Seen:%20They%20Stopped%20Selling%20Hours%20&body=Check%20out%20https://www.thevisibleauthority.com/blog/the-best-consulting-transformation-ive-ever-seen-they-stopped-selling-hours) ## Further Reading ### Info **The Visible Authority is a brand of:** TVA & Partners BV (legal entity) Jan Verbertlei 37 2650 Edegem Belgium [contact@thevisibleauthority.com](mailto:contact@thevisibleauthority.com) ### Menu - [About Us](https://www.thevisibleauthority.com/about) - [Insights](https://www.thevisibleauthority.com/blog) - [Contact](https://www.thevisibleauthority.com/support-request) ### Connect with us on LinkedIn: [Luk Smeyers](https://www.linkedin.com/in/luksmeyers/)  [Florian Heinrichs](https://www.linkedin.com/in/fmheinrichs/) Copyright © 2025 The Visible Authority - All Rights Reserved. - [Privacy Policy](https://www.thevisibleauthority.com/privacy-policy)