The Changing Dynamics Within Management Consulting : How Digital Business Models and Gig Workers has Disrupted a Traditional Industry

Abstract: As the gig economy is growing at a rapid pace and digitalization has spread throughout the management consulting industry, a notable disruption of this traditional industry has occurred. Digitalization in the management consulting industry has affected both how the management consultant does his/her job as well as how the connection between consultant and client and the relationship between colleagues constitutes. Digitalization also facilitates remote working, which has after the Covid-19 pandemic become a high priority. This in turn has enabled the growth of the gig economy and the increasing number of gig worker. Digital gig platforms acting as a meetingplace have increased in both numbers and popularity as well as digital service platforms providing digital tools with the help of SaaS or AI to deliver a more complex solution to the customer. The disruption of the management consulting industry has only begun and therefor it is a need to analyze the way this industry works today and discuss how the industry has adapted to digitalization. Therefor the purpose of this master thesis is to increase the knowledge of how the progress of digital business models affect the management consulting industry by answering the two research questions: “How has the management consulting industry within the area of organizational development been disrupted by the increasing amount of independent workers using gig platforms?” and “How has digitized Service platforms in the area of organizational development changed the traditional management consulting business model?”. This master thesis is conducted through a literature review and semi structured interviews. What can be concluded is that the management consulting industry has been disrupted by the digital platforms in a way that has put pressure on the larger traditional management consulting companies, more digital platforms are created and an increasing number of gig workers have resulted in collaborations between freelancers and traditional management consulting companies. It is also seen that traditional management consulting companies are adopting other business model alternatives that includes solutions based on AI or cloud solutions.