🎯Today's Management Consulting Pulse
Updated 20m agoWhat's happening: Advisory services become lifeline as accounting firms lose compliance work to AI
Accounting firms are rapidly losing compliance work to AI and automation, prompting a strategic shift toward higher‑margin advisory services. Experts advise pruning low‑margin clients and adopting structured, team‑based advisory models with flat‑fee pricing to capture growth.
Also developing:
- •Six tactics to make strategy stick with skeptical leaders
- •Bill Fasel joins J.S. Held Chicago office
- •Ankura acquires Sachs Policy Group
News•Feb 20, 2026
Leaders, Consider Pausing Before Acting on Employee Feedback
Recent research in the Academy of Management Journal shows that the speed of a leader’s response to employee feedback shapes perceptions of authenticity. Rapid behavioral changes are often judged as insincere, while gradual adjustments are seen as genuine growth. The effect varies by change type: quick, easy fixes are accepted, but swift, difficult changes trigger skepticism. Leaders are advised to pace reforms, communicate rationale, and use transparent processes to maintain trust.
By Harvard Business Review
Social•Feb 20, 2026
Design Wins When You Redesign the Entire Service
I once worked with a company that sold frozen ready meals to elderly customers. They wanted better website conversion rates. Straightforward brief, right? We did user research and found the real problems had nothing to do with the website: - Customers were...
By Paul Boag
Blog•Feb 20, 2026
Organizational Readiness, Not Employee Resistance to Change, Is the Biggest Barrier to AI Success
New research from Qualtrics and Celonis shows that employee resistance is no longer the primary obstacle to AI adoption; instead, organizational readiness is. While 52% of workers regularly use AI and 89% of leaders view AI as a competitive opportunity,...
By Unleash
Social•Feb 20, 2026
Reputation Grows From Action, Not Self‑Promotion
Reputation isn’t built through narration; it’s built through contribution. What you say about yourself expires quickly. What you do for others compounds quietly. In complex systems, trust travels peer-to-peer, not top-down. Service is not charity, it’s strategy. It creates advocates...
By Fayaz King
Social•Feb 19, 2026
AI Will Render Traditional Apps Obsolete Within 18 Months
The SaaS market, the App Store, even enterprise suites, as a set of discrete “apps” that we choose from is an increasingly outdated concept. Soon, it will be a profoundly irrelevant concept. AI will relentlessly dissolve apps into capabilities. Sure, 20-30% of them...
By Dion Hinchcliffe
Blog•Feb 19, 2026
How to Drive Change Management During M&A Integration
Mergers and acquisitions are fundamentally change initiatives, yet many firms neglect dedicated change management. Appointing a specialized change manager transforms integration from ad‑hoc tasks into a value‑creation engine, especially after the deal closes. A proven methodology—interviews, surveys, reporting, action plans,...
By DealRoom – Blog
Social•Feb 19, 2026
AI Personas Turn UX Research Into Organizational Superpower
Most UX teams have a bottleneck problem. You've done the research. You know what users need. But every time someone across the organization has a question about users, they have to come to you. You become the gatekeeper. Not by choice. Just...
By Paul Boag
Blog•Feb 19, 2026
When Excellent Technology Architecture Fails to Deliver Business Results
Large enterprises now standardize clean, cloud‑first technology architectures, yet many digital transformations still miss their business targets. The piece explains that the failure stems not from technical flaws but from architecture being sidelined during day‑to‑day decision making, where cost, risk...
By Architecture & Governance Magazine – Elevating EA
Social•Feb 19, 2026
Embedding AI Requires Culture, Process, Not Just Pilots
From isolated experimentation to embedded capability, culture, process, and incentives as the true transformation levers In boardrooms across industries, the same slide appears with reassuring regularity: a grid of successful AI pilots. A fraud model that lifted detection rates. A marketing...
By Iain Brown
News•Feb 19, 2026
How AI Is Rewriting the Rules of Consulting
AI is fundamentally reshaping consulting by replacing lengthy analysis and PowerPoint‑heavy engagements with faster, outcome‑focused projects. Firms are leveraging in‑house and public AI tools to accelerate insight generation, while clients increasingly use the same technology, shifting value from “what is”...
By TechCentral (South Africa)
Blog•Feb 19, 2026
Cyber Risk Management In Remote-First Environments
Executive-led cyber risk management has shifted from traditional IT‑centric frameworks to a leadership‑first model that aligns digital hygiene with corporate governance. In remote‑first environments, the loss of a centralized perimeter expands the attack surface, making every executive login a potential...
By Think Insights
Social•Feb 19, 2026
Leadership Is Forged on the Shop Floor, Not in Classrooms
My MBA gave me tools; the shop floor gave me wisdom. 🛠️ Classrooms teach strategy. Real leadership? That’s forged in the world. Leadership happens when you: • Manage uncertainty without a case study. • Lead people who don’t speak in slides. • Decide with incomplete...
By Abraham Kah
Social•Feb 19, 2026
Discomfort Shapes Cohesion and Filters True Commitment
We romanticize comfort and pathologize discomfort. Yet shared hardship is often the forge of cohesion. The point isn’t to chase suffering for its own sake—it’s to understand what it produces: clarity of intent, removal of trivialities, alignment under pressure. In...
By Fayaz King
Podcast•Feb 18, 2026•25 min
Why Most Projects Fail—And How to Achieve Better Outcomes
In this episode, Antonio Nieto‑Rodriguez explains why roughly two‑thirds of projects fail and outlines how organizations can improve outcomes. He emphasizes framing projects as strategic investments, aligning structures and incentives around a project‑centric model, and avoiding common pitfalls such as...
By HBR On Leadership
Social•Feb 19, 2026
AI Agents Trigger Enterprise Platform Reset by 2026
My latest research: The Great CIO Platform Reset: Why Agentic AI Is Forcing a 2026 Reckoning https://t.co/5nUzVNyJb8 Bottom line: AI agents are reshaping enterprise platform strategy.
By Dion Hinchcliffe
Social•Feb 19, 2026
CIOs Must Choose Cloud Strategy and Rebuild Capabilities
#CIOChat Q4: Endgame: Is the future cloud-first, cloud-smart, or cloud-selective? What does your next-gen operating model look like across on-prem, edge, sovereign cloud, hyperscale? What strategic capability must CIOs rebuild, refactor, or pay down tech debt to make it work? https://t.co/eKYQWD41ZW
By Dion Hinchcliffe
News•Feb 18, 2026
The 10-25 Unit Playbook: Scale Without Chaos
SynergySuite released an eBook titled “The 10‑25 Unit Playbook: Scale Without Chaos,” targeting restaurant groups expanding from ten to twenty‑five locations. The guide outlines practical frameworks, real‑world data, and a unified technology stack to eliminate inventory bleed, improve labor forecasting,...
By Fast Casual
Social•Feb 19, 2026
Sovereign Stacks: Balancing Scale, Regulation, and Control
#CIOChat Q3: Data residency, sovereignty mandates, and geopolitical risk are rapidly reshaping architectural decisions right now. Are we entering a “sovereign stack” era? How are you balancing hyperscaler scale with regulatory exposure and enterprise control? https://t.co/VK5lLC7gA0
By Dion Hinchcliffe
Social•Feb 19, 2026
CIOs Reevaluate Cloud‑First Doctrine Amid Rising Risks
#CIOChat Q1: For a decade, “cloud-first” was treated as doctrine. With the “public” prefix unsaid. Are CIOs now quietly reassessing that orthodoxy? What signals (cost volatility, lock-in, latency, resilience, or control) made you question assumptions we once considered settled? https://t.co/Eecmzn4rTh
By Dion Hinchcliffe
Blog•Feb 17, 2026
North Star Organizational Transformation
The article outlines a North Star‑driven digital transformation framework, beginning with a concise, inspirational mission statement that positions the company as customer‑first, data‑powered, and agile. It defines four strategic pillars—Customer Experience, Data & Insights, Agile Platforms, and People & Culture—and...
By Future of CIO
Social•Feb 19, 2026
Outthink Disruption: Leaders Build Tomorrow's Innovations
I’m excited to keynote at @xRedThreadx on March 14, 2PM at the LINE Hotel. I’ll share how leaders can outthink disruption—and build what’s next. Looking forward to connecting with fellow Outthinkers and innovators. #RedThreadX #Innovation #Strategy #Leadership #Outthinker https://t.co/FwYxqch81L
By Kaihan Krippendorff
Social•Feb 19, 2026
AI's Rapid Diffusion Outpaces Our Adaptation Capacity
AI is eating industries and jobs. For sure. But new ones will be created. However, we’ve never seen tech diffuse this rapidly. It’s the speed of digestion that we are struggling with the most. https://t.co/KApUVISD5g
By Daniel Newman
News•Feb 17, 2026
MindBridge Announces Global Partnership with Genpact to Elevate Audit Analytics and Risk Consulting
MindBridge, an AI‑powered financial intelligence firm, announced a global partnership with Genpact to embed its analytics platform into Genpact’s Enterprise Risk Consulting engagements. The collaboration will allow Genpact to deliver full‑population risk scoring, anomaly detection, and continuous controls monitoring for...
By CPA Practice Advisor
Social•Feb 18, 2026
Sweden Unveils Fully Automated Convenience Store Prototype
#WhosNext? Convenience store clerks? This is what a fully automated convenience store in Sweden looks like. (World Economic Forum) #RetailTech #Automation https://t.co/ONbpQuHUr0
By James Gingerich
Social•Feb 18, 2026
Zoho's OS of Intelligence Unifies Data, Ensures Sovereignty
Zoho’s @rajuv just finished a great presentation describing @Zoho’s systems philosophy, summing up to following 3 key outcomes at #ZohoDay 2026 in Austin. - Operating System of Intelligence - Unified Business Context with live data - Sovereignty by design https://t.co/y6UWOmv1dv
By Sarbjeet Johal
Blog•Feb 17, 2026
A Minute with Alan® — Character
Alan Weiss published a new installment of his "A Minute with Alan®" series titled "Character" on February 17, 2026. The brief entry emphasizes the role of personal character in consulting and leadership. Although the post contains minimal narrative, it is...
By Contrarian Consulting
Social•Feb 18, 2026
Customer Obsession Turned $6M Into $5B
Coach went from $6M to $5B because Lew Frankfort focused on one thing: Customer obsession. Function. Difference. Emotion. That’s brand power. #Branding #Leadership https://t.co/dSE0pXRsTs
By Kaihan Krippendorff
Social•Feb 18, 2026
CIOs Overrun SAP Migration; ERP Must Accelerate for AI
The 7 biggest S/4HANA migration hurdles — and how to overcome them https://t.co/6u9sHnY6rG My take: Many CIOs I speak w/ are accumulating SAP instances faster than they can combine/rationalize them. ERP industry needs to adapt to AI speed if it doesn’t want to...
By Dion Hinchcliffe
News•Feb 17, 2026
Michael Kassan’s 3CV Made $50M in Its First 15 Months in Business
Michael Kassan’s 3C Ventures (3CV) posted $50 million in revenue within its first 15 months, surpassing early targets. About 35% of that income stems from multi‑stage, seven‑figure transformation projects for Fortune 500 clients such as Delta, JPMorgan Chase, AutoNation and Qualcomm. The firm...
By Adweek
Social•Feb 18, 2026
Retainers Free You From Weekly Price Negotiations
Hourly pricing makes you negotiate your value every week. Retainers let you deliver and move on.
By Rachel Pedersen
Social•Feb 18, 2026
Plan Ahead to Avoid Vendor Lock‑In Barriers
Vendor lock-in makes switching harder later. Businesses and software evolve differently, creating a gap over time. Plan for future digital transformations. #VendorLockIn #DigitalTransformation #BusinessStrategy https://t.co/SEjhkOsbRr
By Eric Kimberling
Blog•Feb 17, 2026
Five Essential Principles For Sustaining Growth Through Innovation
Lorraine H. Marchand’s new book *No Fear, No Failure* presents a practical framework—the 5 Cs (Customer First, Culture, Collaboration, Change, Chance)—to embed innovation into large, traditionally risk‑averse organizations. Drawing on 120+ executive interviews and real‑world case studies, the author offers step‑by‑step...
By Eric Jacobson on Management & Leadership
News•Feb 16, 2026
HDR Selected to Lead Program Management Services for Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport
HDR has been chosen by the Lexington‑Fayette Urban County Airport Board to provide program management services for Blue Grass Airport’s next decade of capital projects. The multiyear effort will advance terminal expansion, landside access, general‑aviation growth, and airfield safety upgrades....
By Airport Improvement Magazine
Podcast•Feb 16, 2026•59 min
Embedding Strategic Foresight Into Strategic Planning: A Conversation with Professor Bert George.
In this episode, host Michael J. Keegan talks with Professor Bert George about the fundamentals of strategic foresight and how it can be woven into an organization’s strategic planning and management processes. George explains the core concepts of foresight, the...
By The Business of Government Hour
Social•Feb 16, 2026
AI Wins, Workforce Burns: Address Fear Separately
You can “win” your AI rollout and still lose your workforce. A recent study of 430 manufacturing employees found that even successful AI transformations increase emotional exhaustion. Translation? Your KPIs can trend up, 📈 while motivation trends down. 📉 The research identifies two distinct fears: •...
By Cassie Kozyrkov
Blog•Feb 15, 2026
The Multifamily Tip of the Day: Complaints Are Gold Mines
Mike Brewer’s latest Multifamily tip frames resident complaints as a strategic asset rather than a nuisance. By aggregating complaints into thematic patterns, property managers can uncover systemic weaknesses that individual tickets miss. Addressing root causes instead of symptoms turns free...
By Multifamily Collective (Apartment Hacker)
Blog•Feb 14, 2026
How to Lead a High-Performing Team of Competitive Achievers (With Video)
The article outlines how leaders can turn a group of high‑achieving, competitive individuals into a cohesive, high‑performing team by emphasizing the "AND" mindset—leveraging personal strengths while fostering collaboration. It shares a real‑world example from Bell Atlantic where a leader used...
By Let’s Grow Leaders
Social•Feb 13, 2026
AI Fluency Drives PR Evolution at FleishmanHillard
How AI Is Transforming The Communications Industry: Lessons From FleishmanHillard FleishmanHillard 's Ephraim Cohen reveals how the global #PR consultancy is democratizing #AI across its workforce through hands-on #training and integrated platforms, building #AIfluency among #communications professionals to navigate an increasingly...
By Bernard Marr
Blog•Feb 12, 2026
Strategic Levers to Turn a Low Season Period Into an Opportunity
The article outlines how hotels can convert low‑season challenges into profit opportunities by leveraging data‑driven direct‑booking strategies, diversified product offerings, and flexible policies. It stresses the importance of analyzing occupancy, ADR and RevPAR to fine‑tune pricing and channel mix. The...
By Revenue Hub
Blog•Feb 12, 2026
Initiatives of Innovation
The article defines innovation fluency as a core capability that blends mindset, knowledge, practices, and governance to turn ideas into impact. It outlines a ten‑dimensional framework—from curiosity and problem framing to metrics and storytelling—and provides a diagnostic at individual, team,...
By Future of CIO
News•Feb 12, 2026
Embridge Consulting Introduces “Elastic Change” To Tackle Why ERP and Transformation Projects Fail
Embridge Consulting launched the Elastic Change framework to address the high failure rate of ERP and digital transformation projects. The model replaces rigid, project‑led approaches with a flexible structure that scales with organisational maturity and emphasizes emotionally intelligent leadership. By...
By ERP News
Podcast•Feb 12, 2026•28 min
290. Tim Koller Reflects on Three Decades of Valuation at McKinsey
Tim Koller, co‑author of the seminal textbook *Valuation*, joins Andy West and Dago Diedrich to trace the book’s 30‑year journey from a simple three‑ring binder to a global standard for measuring corporate worth. He highlights enduring valuation principles—cash‑flow focus, risk‑adjusted...
By Inside the Strategy Room
News•Feb 11, 2026
CGI Expands Global Alliance with Google Cloud to Help Businesses with Gemini AI
CGI has broadened its multi‑year alliance with Google Cloud to accelerate enterprise adoption of the Gemini agentic AI platform. The expansion equips tens of thousands of CGI consultants with Gemini Enterprise and funds joint workshops, hackathons, and training programs. It...
By ChannelE2E
Blog•Feb 11, 2026
The Secret to Building an Elite Team
Strategy‑execution expert Pete Wilkinson warns that building an elite team requires the same relentless commitment as training for the Olympics. He outlines four "power habits"—focus, personal organisation, proactivity and self‑discipline—and stresses consistent goal‑cascading across the organisation. Wilkinson breaks the journey...
By Vistage Research Center (CEO Pulse)
Podcast•Feb 11, 2026•29 min
Re-Engineering Construction Flow with Takt
In this episode, host Aarni Heiskanen interviews Aleksi Heinonen, a Finnish operations‑management consultant and lean‑construction thought leader, about the rise of Takt production in Finland’s building industry. Heinonen explains how defining a firm Takt time—sometimes years before ground‑break—revolutionized scheduling, logistics,...
By AEC Business
Blog•Feb 10, 2026
We Will Build Expertise Rapidly
Blair’s seventh proclamation in The Win Without Pitching Manifesto urges firms to build expertise rapidly through continuous learning and specialization. By staking a claim in a niche, companies create competitive pressure that forces them to race ahead of generalist rivals....
By Win Without Pitching
News•Feb 6, 2026
How to Design the Software Engineering Organization to Deliver Business Value
Software engineering leaders must proactively design their organization and delivery model to align with the CIO‑defined IT operating model, rather than reacting to legacy structures. The article outlines how to evaluate alternatives, choose between service‑optimized and value‑optimized models, and build...
By SD Times
Podcast•Feb 6, 2026•0 min
The Secret to Managing Change Without Burning Out Your Employees
In this five‑minute episode, the host uses a pickleball ball‑feeding machine as a metaphor to illustrate the need for a steady cadence when implementing organizational change. He explains that bombarding teams with rapid, unpredictable shifts—like the machine’s erratic, high‑speed balls—leads...
By Future Ready Leadership