How technology affects Management Consulting/Strategy?

Had a few questions on how technology can change management consulting, tech consulting, strategy or other related business functions.

Consultants require a ton of face-to-face interactions with F500 executives as well thinking outside the box, while coming up with solutions to problems, etc so this would lead me to believe that automation will almost never be an issue for consultants. Though, out of curiosity, would you think that consultants would be some of the last roles to be automated?

Secondly, currently as an analyst, I've heard most of your work is rather menial and may be easily done by a robot in the future (I'm not a consultant so I'm not 100% sure if these assertions are correct). Would it not be possible for consulting firms to completely automate analyst roles in 10 or so years and completely cut out on-campus-recruitment? Couldn't they could just hire MBAs straight to Consultant level roles?

Looking forward to seeing what you guys have to say.

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I'm a first year BA/A/AC at MBB so I can comment on your question regarding the analyst role.

To be frank, what you've heard is mostly wrong. The analyst role requires a significant amount of problem solving, metal agility, flexibility, and understanding of nuance. The unpredictability of the job lends itself to being difficult to automate, because I truly can never be sure what I'll be doing next week.

That isn't to say there are parts of the analyst role that aren't menial and could be automated - there certainly are - but I don't see technology being sophisticated enough to replace a consulting analyst any time soon. If tech (namely AI and ML) does get to that point, I think it's far more likely consulting as a field will die because 90% of the value prop consulting firms provide would be available and much cheaper to clients if they just bought robots themselves.

 

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