Why Consulting Firms Fail to Become More Strategic

“We want to become more strategic”.

We hear this a lot. It’s a common ambition for consulting firms.

Unfortunately, most of the consulting firms we speak with encounter difficulties on their path to providing more strategic support to their clients. They pivot, adjust, rethink, and recalibrate, yet end up with the same results:  struggling to win the kind of high-value work they set out to achieve.

Working in the trenches of the consulting industry, we noticed that when the need to be more strategic arises, it almost always stems from a structural problem in how the firm is organised. It sparks numerous discussions among the leadership team.

Most discussions concern being stuck in lower-level, lower-paid, one-off project work. What we call 'hitting the project wall'.

The consulting firm struggles to break through to longer-term, higher-value engagements where it could shape outcomes and influence strategy.

When we examine these situations, we find that the real blockers are often not related to project delivery. They’re about who delivers it, how the consulting proposition is structured, and what the firm offers.

The Symptoms of Hitting the Project Wall

We’ve seen it multiple times: big and small consulting firms surviving at the edge of existential risk. Their revenue relies on one-time projects. Each completed project leads to another wall, another beginning, with no momentum or cumulative growth. 

Understanding the symptoms of hitting the project wall is crucial for transforming a consultancy into a more strategic, stable, and growth-oriented one. Here are some of the most common and alarming symptoms:

• High Unbillable Time: A never-ending cycle of writing proposals, pitching, and onboarding new clients, resulting in significant time that can't be billed, leading to inefficiency and employee fatigue.
  
  
• Low Revenue/FTE: A lack of high-value projects, resulting in a diminished revenue generation per employee.
  
  
• Growth Ceiling: A stagnant growth pattern, unable to break through to new levels of expansion.
  
  
• High Cost of Sales (COS): The constant need to win new clients leads to significant sales costs, draining resources that could be allocated elsewhere.
  
  

• Capacity Issues: Overextension, resulting in internal capacity challenges, disrupts workflow and potentially affects delivery quality.

• Lack of Long-Term Client Relationships: Focusing on one-off projects leads to missed opportunities for deeper client engagement and recurring revenue.
  
  
• Reactive Instead of Proactive Approach: The continuous scramble for new projects fosters a reactive culture, missing the opportunity to strategically position the consultancy for future success.

These symptoms point to the hard truth: the firm isn’t built to offer more strategy-focused solutions. 

Why the Ambition to “Become More Strategic” Often Fails

Superficial changes are simply not enough. To successfully break through the project wall, consulting firms must fundamentally rethink their business setup.

And that’s why so many consulting firms fail.

1. Capability Selling

If the firm continues to sell its capabilities (“We do X”) instead of a problem-solving business case that resonates at the top (“We solve X”), it remains tactical by design. Strategy demands a C-level-proof value proposition, issue-based & outcome-led. Not a ‘here’s-what-we-do’ service menu.

We’ve seen many consulting firms fall into this trap. They rely on long lists of services and technical competencies, hoping clients will connect the dots. They won't.

Recommended reading: There Are Two Ways to Run a Consulting Firm. One Drains Profitability.

2. Experienced ‘Strategy People’

C-level executives address macro-level business problems. So if a firm lacks senior consultants with the depth and experience to challenge clients at an executive level, it will struggle to attract strategic work, regardless of ambition.

And it’s not just about years of experience. Senior consultants should not hesitate to ask difficult questions. They should be able to offer perspectives that show their superior understanding of how micro issues impact the larger picture. That’s how they build trust.

Without this depth of expertise, consulting firms win only low-risk, execution-focused work.

3. Workload

If the team is overloaded with operational project delivery, there’s no capacity to invest in strategic client development. Intent is irrelevant without time.

When a firm is stretched thin, even the most capable and experienced consultants lack the will, inspiration, or resources to develop deeper relationships with clients, evaluate and reorganise processes, or create more strategy-based offerings that lead to long-term partnerships.

4. C-level Access

Strategy work will remain out of reach if the team can’t build relationships and relevance at the executive level. Decision-makers, not lower-level management, award strategic work. Moving upstream with downstream work rarely works.

While many hope that they can “build their way up”, this rarely happens. Why? Because access to C-level decision-makers requires a different service offering, problem-resolution approach, and value proposition.

Getting Over the Project Wall Is a Design Choice

Rethinking the fundamentals is not easy. And then actually going through with the new design requires grit and determination.

Back in the days, when I, Luk, ran my iNostix consultancy, I grew tired of feeling the pressure of constantly chasing prospects and having to figure out how to deliver a project because my ego-driven self said yes to every opportunity.

So here’s what I did to break through the wall:

• Sharpen the value proposition: I made sure that our clients understood what we stood for. A specific proposition was the basis for trust and repeat business.
  
  
• Design strategic service offerings: We always built in service continuity beyond the first project, shaping long-term client success journeys.
  
  
• Build executive relationships: Long-term alliances are only possible by earning the trust of C-level executives. It was central to our growth.
  
  
• Connect to executive agendas: Even when projects started with lower priorities, I linked our work to what mattered at the top: growth, risk, speed, or cost, to name a few.
  
  
• Align with goals and budgets: I helped clients define OKRs and support their budgeting (short-term, mid-term, and long-term).
  
  
• Support internal capability building: By advising on team design and regularly sharing content to build client expertise and confidence.

How to Start Moving in the Right Direction

Many firms looking to “go proposition-led” and do more strategy work think this means adding a strategy "layer" to their business: A few slides. A new workshop. Maybe a thought leadership campaign.

But that’s not the shift.

To become a proposition-led firm, consulting firms can’t just offer strategy. They need to build the business around a single, defined client success journey from an issue to an outcome.

This means:

• Strategy work and execution work must serve the same proposition
• IP, sales process, and delivery must reflect one coherent point of view
• Stopping “doing everything for everyone”

Here’s the starting point we recommend:

1. Re-architect Strategy and Execution Around a Shared Proposition

No more treating “strategy” as an optional top layer. No more delivering execution without precise framing.

Instead:

• Use strategy to define the right problem to solve
• Use execution to deliver the solution, with purpose and control
• Make sure both are inseparable parts of the same client journey

When that happens, clients don’t just buy deliverables. They buy clarity. Ownership. Outcomes.

2. Require Prospects to Start With Strategy

If you want to shift your model, you’ll have to shift your entry points. And yes, this means saying:

“We never jump straight into delivery. First, we help you frame the problem. That’s how we set every engagement up for success.”

David C. Baker, in his book 'The Business of Expertise', illustrates this concept with a metaphor: imagine a house with a front room and a back room. Visitors must pass through the front room, representing a firm’s discovery or strategy offerings, before reaching the back room, which represents the firm’s execution capabilities.

Build your consulting firm like this!

No new client gains access to the backroom (there is no backroom door), even if the initial request is more downstream or executional. 

Our TVA recommendation closely mirrors this idea: we advise clients to treat strategic review or discovery work as the minimum threshold for engaging with new clients. Yes, even if your firm is primarily known for execution. And yes, even if it feels like it might cost you a deal or two (which it usually won’t).

It’s the only way to be seen as a serious professional advisor—and to avoid being commoditised.

3. Design the Full Client Journey Around This Shift

Once you’ve rebuilt the front-end and reset your client entry points, ensure that your entire go-to-market strategy, delivery rhythm, and team structures evolve to support the proposition. 

The Takeaway: Gradually Shifting Towards Proposition-Led Work, The Route to Becoming More Strategic

In moving to ‘becoming more strategic,’ consulting firms might worry about disrupting what is currently working. But the shift doesn’t have to happen all at once.

Consulting firms can start by piloting their proposition-led approach in a focused area, such as a single issue, vertical, or buyer group, while the rest of the firm continues to deliver.

This doesn't have to be a ‘flip of the switch’, changing the entire identity of the consulting firm.

However, in the end, it must happen over time if consulting firms want to stop being defined by prospect-chasing, RFPs, and constantly reinventing the wheel.

Shifting to "proposition-led" doesn’t mean stacking strategy on top of execution. It means making every part of the firm serve the same issue-resolution, point of view, and client success journey.

That’s when consultancies overcome being seen as just a vendor and become a partner clients choose to lead with.

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