Technology consulting is all about advising clients on how they can use IT to achieve more effective, profitable, or cost-efficient business outcomes. This is a very client-facing line of IT work, requiring you to engage in-depth with clients to understand what they want to achieve for their business, and then propose solutions to clients according to their budget and needs.
Businesses across all industries employ the services of technology consultancies, usually for one of two reasons. Either they want to implement new/emerging technologies into their operations, or they are facing a business challenge that requires specialised technology to resolve.
Career overview
The work of technology consultancies usually falls under one of these five categories:
- IT strategy and design: Helping clients stay relevant by ensuring their present technology is updated and can keep up with their corporate strategies.
- IT operations and management: "Renovating" and enhancing a client's business and IT processes in order to increase time- and/or cost-efficiency.
- Enterprise architecture: Assisting clients in developing roadmaps for their long-term IT strategy. This includes a vision for the future, corporate technology standards, and a core technology catalogue.
- Sourcing: Evaluating whether a client should outsource specific IT tasks in order to streamline operations, and setting up such arrangements for them if needed.
- Integration: Helping clients solve complicated business challenges using either custom-made or commercially-available IT solutions.
Graduate hires typically begin their careers in project support or analyst roles, analysing a client’s current setup or problems and pulling together the information and data needed for their assigned team’s projects.
After gaining more experience, graduates may be given responsibility over a client or specific project function, such as designing, building, and implementing a custom-made system for a solution. As you gain more seniority, you may be assigned to handle key client accounts, or to lead a team of consultants through entire projects from start to finish.
Some consultants may also choose to become specialists in specific industry niches later on in their careers. At this point, they can choose to either remain attached to a larger consultancy firm, or break out on their own to start boutique tech consultancies.
Regardless of your pathway in this sector, all tech consultants will be expected to deal directly with clients to some extent. You can also expect to spend a lot of time travelling and working on-site in clients’ offices. Make sure that you are comfortable dealing with people before you consider this line of work.
Trends and developments
The COVID-19 pandemic caused major technology disruption around the world, forcing businesses across all industries to restructure their business models while taking into account the adoption of remote working, automation, and AI. This presents plenty of new challenges for technology consultancies, who need to guide their clients through such rapid changes.
In general, technology consulting isn’t just about IT. Although clients usually approach consultants with technology issues, those usually stem from a business problem of some kind. As a consultant, you must have a good head for business too, as there is increased demand for the work of tech consultants to provide more holistic solutions to clients’ overall business challenges.
Clients will also be looking to tech consultants to model the same solutions that they propose, so technology consultancies will often implement the latest best practices in their own work as well. It is important that you stay up to date on the latest trends in collaborative work and agile working methodology – especially in this era of remote work.
Pros and cons
Wide exposure and numerous opportunities
Due to the project- and client-based nature of the work, you will be exposed to numerous industries and businesses, as well gain in-depth insights into their operational practices. This brings lots of opportunities for learning and building your professional network.
Work-life balance
You can expect to work long hours on projects and implementing solutions. The constant travelling required for this job means that you will often go beyond the usual 9-to-5 too.
Required skills
- Analytical and problem-solving skills
- Being up-to-date on the latest tech trends
- Willingness to learn
- Persuasion and presentation skills
- Commercial awareness
- Excellent interpersonal skills
