Market for consulting still maturing in India: Jim Moffatt

Jim Moffatt, Chairman and CEO of Deloitte Consulting LLP was in India recently. In an interview with Business Today, Moffatt reflected on the changing nature of the consulting business brought about by new technologies and evolving models. Edited excerpts:

Q. What brings you to India?

A. India is a big part of our integrated delivery model. We have a number of operations here. I take advantage of this by coming and visiting some clients, spending time with our people, evaluating further investments in India. It is a combination of things.

Q. How is Deloitte Consulting doing?

A. Globally, we continue to do very well. In the last couple of years, we have outgrown our competition across every dimension. Our platform is focused on value - that seems to work in the marketplace. We are investing in innovation. Underneath innovation there is big data and analytics. India is a longer-term play. The market is still maturing for consulting. I think of our business in four dimensions - around growth, brand and positioning, performance and talent. Our emphasis right now in India is around talent and positioning. Growth is important but I am looking at longer-term sustainable growth.

Q. Does that mean Deloitte has not seen good growth in India?

A. No, we had good growth in India. It is just that if I compare it to other markets that are exploding, India is still some years away from being a mature market.   

Q. We are now seeing technology playing a big part in consulting. IT services companies now have business consulting divisions. There are other disruptions like social, mobile, analytics and cloud (SMAC) technologies . What does this mean for independent consulting providers such as your company?  

A. Consulting by its nature is always disruptive. The pace of change has accelerated today. We are investing a lot in analytics. We have embraced innovation. The analytical piece is the part that will actually become commoditized. You still have to drive the broad transformation within the organization. The role of a consultant is changing. The model is evolving. We will become participants and stakeholders in industry ecosystems. We will no longer just provide resources on a time and material basis. We are shaping the industry, taking ownership stakes and getting compensated largely on the value we create. That is why we started investing in these models many years ago. We are doing value-based consulting work for more than a decade. If I try to keep my model as exactly as it is today, I think we will be vulnerable. But if we embrace it (the changing models), there is tremendous opportunity.

Q. Does your competition and the consulting industry have outcome-based models in place now?

A. No. We were the first firm to invest deep in an industry. We have been involved in industry for 20 years now. Plus we really do strategy to execution. We have the experience to get stuff done. The interesting thing to me since I first started consulting is the tight coupling of technology to strategy. When I first started consulting, technology was an afterthought. That's not the case today. If I go talk to a CEO today about strategy, it almost always involves a direct coupling to technology. Firms that don't have the grounding in technology today are vulnerable.