Consulting firms need to measure more than billable hours. Alongside revenue and margins, I want to know how quickly available consultants find meaningful work, whether employees can move between practices, and whether delivery experts help shape proposals. I would look at whether teams reuse what previous engagements taught them and whether client solutions are still useful a year after handover. Those are ways to examine whether the company is getting better at consulting, rather than simply staying busy.
Internally, I would want to know whether employees trust leadership and can get routine issues resolved without escalating through personal contacts. I would check whether new employees have the equipment, access, and information they need from day one. Community investment should be understood through relationships and opportunities over time, not just event attendance. Some of this takes conversation and judgment as well as data, because knowledge work does not become simpler when we manage it like an assembly line. We just get cleaner spreadsheets.
This post is part of my 25 lessons from 25 years in consulting series, exploring what it takes to build a consulting firm that delivers for clients and supports the people doing the work.
From leadership and employee experience to sales and delivery, the series comes back to one idea: a consulting company should be its own best client.
Have a lesson of your own? Share what has worked, what hasn’t, or what you wish more consulting firms understood in the comments.