What to expect: ~900 words / 3 min read
👋 Hi and welcome to Boiling the Ocean, a new bi-weekly newsletter covering everything Strategy Consulting. We’ll be connecting the dots between the latest industry trends, productivity hacks, novel tech tools and work best practices. If you’re looking to break into the industry, get ahead in the office or just make your life as a consultant easier, this newsletter is for you.
First, a thank you
A huge thank you for subscribing! It’s a big leap of faith to sign up to something new and that is not lost on me. I want this to be something that is made actively alongside you, the reader, so please do send in feedback, ideas, links and anything else that can make this the best it can be. In return, I’ll do my utmost to make this is one of the best 3 minutes you spend this week.
Why this, why now
If you look at the tech, productivity, business, startup or any other field (even salads) you’ll find a tonne of newsletters delivering quality content. Up until now, you haven’t had anything serving strategy consultants. This newsletter is seeking to fill that gap, and if it can help you look smart in front of a Partner, then that’s a bonus.
What to expect
Lots of people have asked what this is going to look like. For now, expect key trends, compact commentary, work tips and useful links.
In this week’s newsletter:
News and Updates
Trending 📈
In The News 📰
Layoffs Tracker 🧮
Interesting detours 🔗
Working Effectively
Tech Tool 💾
Productivity Hacks ⚙️
Best Practice 🙌
Keyboard Shortcut 💻
Workplace bingo 🎰
Diving in…
News & Updates
Trending 📈
The boom times are over, for now
It’s no secret that consultancies have been rapidly hiring over the past 18 months, reminiscent of the dot com boom of the late 1990’s. The covid recovery, supercharged by tech, M&A and Net Zero, has fuelled record profits for the industry.
That milk has certainly curdled, with firms now laying off employees or faced with the problem of overcapacity and underutilisation.
To what degree this will rebound for the end of 2023 remains uncertain. For now, it seems that there are early signs of recovery across dealmaking and Advisory work.
AI is already disrupting
When the history books are written, there will be no doubt as to the first major casualty of AI: Chegg, a textbook rental business, saw its share price nearly halve after CEO Dan Rosensweig shared that ChatGPT was impacting customer growth.
More broadly, Education looks to be an industry at greatest risk of disruption from AI in the short-term, with many traditional and digital education businesses reliant on network effects from human-generated content.
My hot take? Expect to see the likes of Quora and other forms of human-to-human content under pressure as AI develops. Integrating AI into products will be a key priority for these companies in the near future.
How is AI going to affect me?
AI is similarly disrupting consulting. Bain and BCG have announced partnerships with OpenAI and others are following suit. Most consultancies have permissive policies to using ChatGPT internally.
You should expect this to feed through via (1) client deliverables and (2) internal efficiencies. The pain point of manual call transcription, note-taking and KTAs will be the first domino to fall.
In terms of what you can do yourself, the best thing is to learn to use these tools.
“AI will not replace you, but the person using AI will”
More to come on this in future issues.
In The News 📰
UK professional services expected to maintain headcount figures
EY acquires whyaye to make it impossible to pronounce company’s name
Deloitte’s Women at Work report shows signs of progress but far to go
Layoffs tracker 🧮
So far consulting has faired better than tech. If you want to compare you can take a look at this tech layoff tracker.
Ask - do you know which firms have pushed back new joiner start dates? If so, email me
Interesting detours 🔗
Working Effectively
Tech Tool 💾
Hopefully you’re already using ChatGPT to make your life easier. If you’re not, then see the advice above.
ChatGPT for Google is the best plugin I’ve come across, it means that every time you search on Google, it automatically ask ChatGPT as well. The speed that you can get to the answer is nuts [1].
Take a look at the demo below:
Productivity Hacks ⚙️
Mark Outlook items as read as soon as you click them - remove annoying unreads so Outlook looks cleaner
Remove the backstage from Powerpoint - 2 seconds of your life back every time you save a file
Best Practice 🙌
Have you ever run a Project Pre-mortem?
Keyboard Shortcut 💻
Powerpoint Quick Copy: Select the object > hold CTRL > drag it away with your mouse
Workplace bingo 🎰
Circle back - when you don’t know what’s being discussed so you organise a follow up later, then don’t
Until next time…
[Insert Consultant Here]
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[1] I’m not affiliated with this tool (or any other links in this newsletter). If that changes, I’ll let you know.