The Consulting industry was already experiencing pressure to transform when business as usual took a dramatic last spring. Having weathered the stormy seas of 2020 and with a clear horizon still somewhere in the distance, it’s more important than ever that firms keep an eye on influential trends. Here’s a head start: Our new report, “The 2021 Consultants’ Guide,” covers four trend predictions from industry experts. Let’s take a quick look at one of those trends and how the right tools for consultants can help you map out agile strategies for your clients—and your own business.

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The No. 1 trend in our report focuses on the shift to a remote work model. Last year, many organizations had to pivot quickly to work-from-home (WFH) scenarios to accommodate social distancing needed to slow the pandemic’s spread. The good news? The forced experiment—something that Corporate America had been testing with mixed results in recent years—was far more successful than expected. In fact, PWC conducted two surveys last year—one in the summer, the other at year’s end—and found that 83% of employers called the shift to remote work a success in December, a 10% increase from June’s results. But, with the prospect of making the virtual office a more permanent fixture is not without some roadblocks—and heading up that list is the need for more robust digital tools.

As a consultant, this trend impacts you on multiple fronts. While many companies may dial back on large-scale tech implementations—and the consultants that support them—due to budgetary constraints, there will still be opportunities for consultants who can provide guidance that empowers a work-from-home or hybrid WFH model. What types of solutions are needed?

• Guidance on optimizing corporate networks to speed up file downloads, improve video conferencing quality, and shorten response times
• Tools and long-term strategies for dealing with security across a distributed network of at-home and on-premises workers at a time when cyberattacks take place with increasing frequency and effectiveness
• New strategies to optimize critical workflows, with an eye to leveraging AI, automation, and other digital solutions beyond communication and collaboration tools

Not a tech consultant? You still need to pay attention to this trend. After all, you need to optimize delivery of insights to your clients through digital tools as well.

With a consulting intelligence platform like Nexis® for Consulting, you can stay on top of breaking news, market dynamics and the competitive landscape. With more than 40,000 sources of news and company information, this powerful research platform makes conducting a search simple, whether you prefer using natural language or Boolean search strings.

Our data enrichment process indexes and tags the content with more than 7,000 subject and industry terms and metadata and pre- and post-search filters that allow you to further refine the results to the most relevant information, quickly.

Then, keep up with changes as they emerge using Alerts. Choose the schedule that works best for your needs to have an Alert sent to yourself and up to five others in your organization for updates when new information is available from your saved searches. By automating this process, you spend less time on research and more time on developing the strategies that can help your clients achieve their goals.

Get the scoop on other trends to watch in the coming months by downloading the full trend report here.

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