Helping to Build High-Performing Consulting Firms

🔴 EDITION #152 | June 17, 2026

Dear reader, 

Welcome to the 152nd edition of our newsletter. 

In this edition, the featured article discusses a common problem in consulting – scope creep. We look into how it happens and what consulting firms can do to establish clear boundaries around their client engagements.

We were very productive again with our LinkedIn activities. Below are the topics we wrote about over the past two weeks. Check it out! 

Enjoy reading,
Luk & Florian

Our New Article

Most Consultancies Design Their Own Scope Creep

The complaint appears almost word-for-word across consulting firms of very different sizes and specialisms: "Clients keep pulling us in directions we didn't plan for."

Scope creep, shifting priorities, or sprawling engagements. Most management and IT consultancies treat it as a delivery problem to be managed, usually with change requests, sometimes with stricter SOWs, occasionally with a frank conversation. It works, up to a point. Change request fees recover some of the margin. Tighter contracts slow the bleeding.

But the cycle never breaks.

The next engagement creeps too. And the one after that. Scope creep is rarely just a delivery problem. More often, it is the commercial consequence of how the consulting firm defines, packages, and structures its expertise. 

Read the New Article

Our Recent Articles

BUSINESS GROWTH

Winning Consulting Clients: Start with Their Problem, Not with a Service List

STRATEGY

Why Most Consultancies Should Segment by Issue First and Industry Second

DIFFERENTIATION

How Consulting Firms Sabotage Their Go-to-Market

OUR BOOK IS COMING IN 2026:

Consulting Proposition Design Book

Mastering Value Proposition Design for Consulting Performance

Join the waitlist to receive early access, get invited to a few pre-launch activities, and receive the book at the special launch price.

Join the Waitlist

Our Recent LinkedIn Posts

🔴 LUK SMEYERS

CONSULTING PERFORMANCE

Most consulting firms still describe themselves like a menu card. And that is suboptimal for their performance!

FUTURE OF CONSULTING

Stay away from the AI Risk Zone in consulting. Or get commoditised.

STRATEGY

"We are client-centric.” Possibly the most meaningless sentence in consulting.

CONSULTING PERFORMANCE

The consulting industry has a value definition problem.

BUSINESS GROWTH

Most consulting firms are running an economically fragile business model.

PROPOSITION-SELLING

Most consulting firms do not deliberately choose their commercial model. It emerges over time.

🔴 FLORIAN HEINRICHS

STRATEGY

A reminder to all consulting firms currently seeking business development support:

CONSULTING PERFORMANCE

Feeling the pressure in consulting right now? Try this...

CONSULTING FOUNDATIONS

Improving consulting firm performance starts with discovering the right direction

STRATEGY

For many of the consulting firms we speak to, it's: strong team, happy clients - but work is getting harder to win.

FUTURE OF CONSULTING

AI is putting pressure on consulting's billable hour... and my LinkedIn is full of repetitions of the fact. But ... what, exactly, can firms do?

BUSINESS MODEL

Hypothesis: AI is exposing something that was always true about consulting firms. And the firms that knew it all along are fine.

CONSULTING SCOPE

When did your consultancy's leadership team last ask: "Is the work we're winning really the work we said we'd go after?"

CASE STUDY

Here's a brief story about how shifting a consultancy's commercial model reduces toil, cost, and frustration:

FUTURE OF CONSULTING

"The era of the service vendor is over. And the era of the tech expert is running out."

Here's How We Help Consultancies

1. Consulting Value Review

A structured, 4 to 6-week, value-proposition-anchored rapid assessment of a consulting firm's growth and performance potential.

Best for:

• Buyers or Investors evaluating the proposition and performance of a consulting firm pre- or post-acquisition/investment

2. Value Maximisation Program

A 10 to 12-week intensive program designed to define, sharpen, and operationalise a firm’s consulting proposition. 

Best for:  

• Boutiques struggling with differentiation & business development
• Practices in large consultancies needing a clearer positioning
• Consulting firms launching new service lines
• Enterprise SaaS companies starting a consulting/service function or needing to improve their current consulting proposition

3. Service Portfolio Optimisation Program

A deep dive into the cohesion, efficiency, and superior client value of a consulting firm’s service portfolio.

Best for:  

• Large consulting firms with too many overlapping or unclear service offerings
• Consulting firm practices seeking to scale profitably by optimising service-market fit

Want to work with us?
SEND US YOUR SUPPORT REQUEST →

Not yet subscribed to 'The Authority'? Subscribe here.

Previous 'The Authority' edition: Edition #151

Wanna send The Authority to friends or colleagues? It lives here

Connect with us on LinkedIn: Luk | Florian