IDC MarketScape
IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Operations Improvement
Consulting Services 2023–2024 Vendor Assessment
Bill Latshaw
THIS IDC MARKETSCAPE EXCERPT FEATURES BCG
IDC MARKETSCAPE FIGURE
FIGURE 1
IDC MarketScape Worldwide Operations Improvement Consulting Services
Vendor Assessment
Source: IDC, 2023
December 2023, IDC #US50494723e
Please see the Appendix for detailed methodology, market definition, and scoring criteria.
IN THIS EXCERPT
The content for this excerpt was taken directly from IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Operations
Improvement Consulting Services 2023–2024 Vendor Assessment (Doc # US50494723). All or parts of
the following sections are included in this excerpt: IDC Opinion, IDC MarketScape Vendor Inclusion
Criteria, Essential Guidance, Vendor Summary Profile, Appendix and Learn More. Also included is
Figure 1.
IDC OPINION
Operations improvement has consistently been one of the largest practice areas for business
consulting providers. IDC defines operational consulting practices as the strategy consulting work that
takes place prior to deployment of a full BPO/managed services engagement, starting with the major
moves the client needs to make for their operations to run smoother. This is the reason behind the
term operations improvement. While the providers we evaluated all have capabilities in finance
operations, marketing and sales (M&S), procurement, and supply chains, there are differences in the
depth and approach each provider offers across these elements.
Operational improvement consulting helps clients become more competitive through process and
operational changes by addressing the process and business/industry or functional content
dimensions of business transformation. We can view operational improvement consulting according to
core business processes (e.g., manufacturing, marketing, sales, order fulfillment, and customer care)
or support functions (e.g., finance processes, HR, and marketing/communications), excluding IT.
Operational improvement consulting services include process reengineering, sales force effectiveness,
procurement improvement, pricing strategy, cross-functional initiatives/program management or
support for all growth initiatives (including product launches, new business implementation, and pre-
and-post-merger integration), and advice on risk, security, and compliance. Operational improvement
consulting also includes process and business performance measurement through executive
dashboard and scorecard design and implementation.
There is only so much IDC can share in this evaluation. For this reason, we focused on the most
central aspect of the providers and their clients' messaging.
IDC MARKETSCAPE VENDOR INCLUSION CRITERIA
▪ Vendors must have a defined operations consulting offering. The specific terminology (i.e.,
operations) is not required, but the consulting topics that the consulting practice covers
(finance operations, marketing and sales, procurement, and supply chain) are required.
▪ Vendors must have had a minimum of $100 million in annual operations consulting revenue in
2022.
▪ Vendors must have a minimum revenue of $20 million in all three geographic regions (the
Americas; Europe, the Middle East, and Africa; and Asia/Pacific).
▪ Vendors must have had a minimum of 50 client projects in 2022.
▪ Vendors must have a minimum of 500 full-time operations-specific consultants.
©2023 IDC #US50494723e 2
ADVICE FOR TECHNOLOGY BUYERS
The operations improvement consulting providers in this study are all strong performers with their own
areas of expertise. Be fastidious when reading about how they position their services against your
needs. The provider may offer many services and capabilities that you do not need and be weak in
areas that you do need. In addition:
▪ Consider what you need most from your operations improvement consulting provider. Are you
looking for a firm that emphasizes methodologies, pioneering thinkers, or helping hands?
▪ Define your needs before you meet with the providers so they do not sway you with compelling
presentations or examples of client successes. Your context is the most vital element of your
future success and must be clear before providers can influence you. You can return to your
original considerations after you have heard from the providers to determine which one most
clearly understands your needs and will lead you to the best path forward.
▪ Ask your provider for references prior to making your final decision and/or reach out to your
own network to find out how the provider produces the results it describes in the proposal.
▪ When you begin working with your provider, maintain your connection with the references or
your contacts to ask for tips on how best to work with your provider at each stage of the
project.
VENDOR SUMMARY PROFILES
This section explains IDC's key observations that define each vendor's position in the IDC
MarketScape. While we have evaluated every vendor against each of the criteria outlined in Tables 1
and 2 of the Appendix, the description here provides a summary of each vendor's strengths and
challenges and when buyers should consider them.
Using the IDC MarketScape model, IDC studied 12 organizations that offer operations improvement
consulting-related services.
BCG
According to IDC analysis and buyer perception, BCG is positioned in the Leaders category in this
2023–2024 IDC MarketScape for worldwide operations improvement consulting services.
BCG's approach is a collaborative, cross-functional model providing support at all levels of the client
organization, with the goal of helping clients thrive and maintain sustained impact. The company's
operational offerings and programs take a holistic approach integrating digital and tech solutions to
enable clients to respond to changing conditions and rapidly evolving economic and political dynamics
and address challenges impacting operations. The six main offerings are manufacturing and supply
chains, procurement, service and support operations (including marketing/sales and finance), end-to-
end (E2E) ops transformation, design/engineer building, and change management.
BCG offers a variety of tools, resources, IP, capabilities, and solutions that clients can leverage. The
BCG X's digital and AI capabilities cut across all of the company's operations offerings using 3,000+
technologists, scientists, programmers, engineers, and human-centered designers around the world to
build and design platforms and software that help clients confront challenges and address
opportunities. BCG's 12 global operational excellence centers provide advice and solution support to
clients, and globally integrated teams provide dedicated operational expertise across sectors to clients,
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including C-suite members and those working day to day on shop floors. The company's consultants
are embedded with the client, allowing them to coach, enable, digitize, and cut through complexity to
the center of value creation and implement solutions hands-on, whether on the factory shop floor,
warehouse facility, or office space.
BCG's consulting capabilities regarding finance consulting, M&S, procurement, and supply chains are
discussed in the sections that follow.
Finance
BCG's CFO client-focused services range from the development of an overall finance strategy to large
finance transformations that focus on operating models, talent enablement, and finance process
optimization and automation. The company's approach begins with an understanding of the client's
overall objectives and an initial assessment to evaluate the current state and identify gaps. BCG then
designs a detailed implementation road map to bridge the gap between the current reality and the
client's strategic goals. The company's finance operations approach client problems by aiming to
streamline processes as much as possible to generate efficiency, and BCG's finance consultants focus
on the most relevant challenges, tracking metrics and KPIs to achieve optimal finance operations.
M&S
BCG's M&S approach relies on the client's strategy to utilize rich data-driven insights. The company's
case teams break down problems into components to assess how best to adapt solutions to streamline
the overall process or problem while adapting it to the client organization. BCG focuses on customer
value management by utilizing tools to implement a different way for sales agents to interact with
customers, which data and BCG's Deep AI drive. In addition, the company works with multiple pricing
tools and resources that case teams and clients leverage when implementing solutions related to sales
maturity, pricing performance, net revenue management, market predictors, demand-centric growth,
and diagnostics.
Procurement
BCG's book, Profit from the Source (HBR Press 2022), positions its procurement consulting approach
as providing efficient operating models empowered by digital analytics and smart tools, where
procurement helps generate value across six dimensions by containing costs, driving innovation,
maximizing product and service quality, meeting ESG standards, accelerating the time to market, and
strengthening supply chain resilience. BCG's procurement toolkit includes several health checks,
playbooks, databases, and proprietary tools to enable more effective project delivery and faster
activation of value across the six dimensions. The company designed its procurement tools, such as
its Spend Cube Spotlight 2.0 tool, Inflation Control Tower, AI Negotiation Coach, and Savings Radar,
to achieve transparency and protect margins.
Supply Chain
BCG's supply chain operations practice adopts a similar end-to-end supply chain transformation
approach to its other operations work, from devising an appropriate strategy for clients based on their
specific industry, dynamics, and needs to full execution support, partnering with BCG's digital
capabilities and expert network. The company's four key pillars within supply chain operations are the
supply chain strategy, supply chain planning, supply chain execution and optimization, and end-to-end
supply chain orchestration. BCG couples its supply chain offering with manufacturing and normally
©2023 IDC #US50494723e 4
uses a three-step project approach, with tools aligned on improvement-program design and impact-
capturing support.
Strengths
BCG focuses on driving fast, measurable impact through execution and enablement anchored in the
appropriate strategy to find high-ROI areas of opportunity. BCG designed its capabilities to build the
people dimension, customize tooling (e.g., Salesforce), build AI recommendation engines, and enable
the client to operate this strategy after its involvement through its continuous improvement approach of
building, operating, optimizing, and enabling. One client described this by saying "the stakeholders,
from finance and other departments, all understood the purpose and valued the results." BCG
optimizes its clients' business processes by working with them each step of the way to show them
what great business processes look like and then enabling them to stand up and run these processes
on their own after their engagement has ended. One client described how BCG met the company
where it needed to, drove the process according to the agreed timeline, and pushed its team and
results through when necessary.
Challenges
BCG indexes customized solutions that the client's context and needs define. While the company has
standard processes for operations improvement and transformation, it is willing to go off-script to meet
its clients' needs. Clients valued BCG's consistent understanding of their needs and purpose and the
speed at which it brought in BCG X or other subject matter experts (SMEs). This model is hard to
scale. BCG has been growing quickly and needs to maintain a balance so its demand doesn't outstrip
its resources.
Consider BCG When
You should consider BCG when you are looking for an operations improvement partner that takes a
holistic problem-solving approach to understanding interdependencies between operations functions
and other parts of a business. BCG works for clients with a specific problem and solution in mind or
creates a customized solution through which BCG works closely with the client to design an approach
that best fits their needs. BCG is a good choice for clients seeking a provider that engages everyone in
the organization through fundamental changes in the organization's culture and ways of working
across the organization or for a single function. BCG's operations improvement consulting approach is
suitable for clients looking for a provider that is flexible, cross-functional, custom oriented, responsive,
proactive, and based on well-established methodologies.
APPENDIX
Reading an IDC MarketScape Graph
For the purposes of this analysis, IDC divided potential key measures for success into two primary
categories: capabilities and strategies.
Positioning on the y-axis reflects the vendor's current capabilities and menu of services and how well
aligned the vendor is to customer needs. The capabilities category focuses on the capabilities of the
company and product today, here and now. Under this category, IDC analysts will look at how well a
vendor is building/delivering capabilities that enable it to execute its chosen strategy in the market.
Positioning on the x-axis, or strategies axis, indicates how well the vendor's future strategy aligns with
what customers will require in three to five years. The strategies category focuses on high-level
©2023 IDC #US50494723e 5
decisions and underlying assumptions about offerings, customer segments, and business and go-to-
market plans for the next three to five years.
The size of the individual vendor markers in the IDC MarketScape represents the market share of each
individual vendor within the specific market segment being assessed.
When reviewing the providers first consider what your operational improvement goals are so that you
are not swayed into quickly choosing one provider over another. Our recommendation is that you
consider creating a quick and simple case study of your current state against future goals. This tool is
useful for you to maintain your center when providers describe their extensive capabilities. Perhaps
the best evaluation of a provider is how well they listened to your needs and understand them rather
than focusing on sharing all that they can do for you.
IDC MarketScape Methodology
IDC MarketScape criteria selection, weightings, and vendor scores represent well-researched IDC
judgment about the market and specific vendors. IDC analysts tailor the range of standard
characteristics by which vendors are measured through structured discussions, surveys, and
interviews with market leaders, participants, and end users. Market weightings are based on user
interviews, buyer surveys, and the input of IDC experts in each market. IDC analysts base individual
vendor scores, and ultimately vendor positions on the IDC MarketScape, on detailed surveys and
interviews with the vendors, publicly available information, and end-user experiences in an effort to
provide an accurate and consistent assessment of each vendor's characteristics, behavior, and
capability.
Market Definition
Business consulting involves advisory and implementation services related to management issues.
This process involves defining an organization's strategy and goals and designing and implementing
the structures and processes that will help the organization reach its goals. Business consulting
related to operational improvement includes the following:
▪ Operational improvement consulting helps clients become more competitive through process
and operational changes by addressing the process and business/industry or functional
content dimensions of business transformation. Operational improvement consulting can be
viewed through core business processes (e.g., manufacturing, marketing, sales, order
fulfillment, and customer care) or support functions (e.g., finance processes, HR, and
marketing/communications), excluding IT. Operational improvement consulting services
include process reengineering, sales force effectiveness, procurement improvement, pricing
strategy, and cross-functional initiatives/program management or support for all growth
initiatives (including product launches, new business implementation, and pre- and-post-
merger integration), and advice on risk, security, and compliance. Operational improvement
consulting also includes process and business performance measurement through executive
dashboard and scorecard design and implementation. Examples of support functions
consulting include:
▪ Finance consulting serves the finance function in client organizations. Consulting services
for finance functions include strategy and organization design for finance and accounting
processes, financial assessment, budgeting, finance management and controls (including
treasury, trading, and tax operations), transactional processes, service delivery, and
financial performance management and measurement. Further, this includes tax-related
©2023 IDC #US50494723e 6
process improvement, such as strategy and process improvement consulting related to tax
handling, tax process management, optimization, and long-term strategy.
▪ M&S consulting services concentrate on the processes, people, and technology that drive
business marketing and sales strategy to enable successful execution. M&S consulting
services are concerned with aligning process improvements, performance analysis,
project planning and management, benchmarking, research, and data management
strategies. People-related M&S consulting includes functional role definitions and decision
rights, performance management, workflows, and cross-functional collaboration. M&S
technology consulting activities are devoted to strategies for making operational
improvements related to customer relationship management systems and other sales and
market-facing technologies. Other M&S consulting activities include competitor analysis,
change management and cross-functional agility, M&S planning, automation, KPI and
metric definitions, goal alignment, and training.
▪ Procurement consulting services optimize procurement operations by assessing
procurement costs, managing supply risk, maximizing purchasing efficiency and
effectiveness, analyzing supplier capabilities, conducting competitive analysis of suppliers,
engaging in contract negotiation strategies, and delivering overall procurement
performance. Procurement consulting goes beyond the best pricing, product/service
quality, and terms to consider product circularity, global versus local decisions, tool
building, and relating the procurement strategy to supply chain requirements. Other
procurement consulting activities support the intersection of procurement strategy,
technology, automation, and operational demands and efficiencies for source-to-contract
and procure-to-pay needs.
▪ Supply chain consulting services are the operational strategies for planning the optimal
flow of goods from the long-term plan to daily planning to execution. This may involve
industrial strategy, distribution strategy, demand forecasting, production and distribution
planning, inventory management, and transportation planning. In a manufacturing setting,
this takes the form of maximizing the efficiency and ideal flow of the physical activities
(e.g., factories, warehouses, and transportation) involved in supply chain operations. This
includes information system and technology recommendations, support, and
enhancement alignment with strategic goals. These services also bring in change
consultants to rethink and reimagine supply chain leadership assumptions, approaches,
and strategic goals.
Exceptions and Exclusions
Business consulting excludes other services defined in this taxonomy and outsourcing services for tax
(e.g., tax processing or tax preparation), financial audit (internal as well as external), accounting,
benefits, and recruiting. Also excluded is advice on tax codes or regulations to enterprises or
individuals (as an individual filer might receive from a tax preparer), even if the advice is not included in
a tax preparation contract. This definition also excludes project-based services for engineering
consulting, legal, branding, PR, external communication, and training. The construction of corporate
acquisition or divestment deals, or proposed deals, is also excluded.
IT operational improvement is excluded from business consulting, as it is covered under the definition
of IT consulting.
©2023 IDC #US50494723e 7
LEARN MORE
Related Research
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October 2023)
▪ Trading Places: Managing CIO/CFO Mindsets Through Hypothetical Role Reversals and a
"Systems Thinking" Approach (IDC #US51107123, August 2023)
▪ IDC PlanScape: Layoff Practices to Avoid Brand Destruction (IDC #US50687923, June 2023)
▪ Internal Talent Mobility Takes Advantage of Future of Work Technology (IDC #US49906123,
June 2023)
▪ IDC Market Glance: Business Consulting Services, 2Q23 (IDC #US49362023, May 2023)
▪ Worldwide and U.S. Business Consulting Services Forecast, 2023–2027 (IDC #US49362223,
May 2023)
Synopsis
This IDC study represents a vendor assessment of the operations improvement consulting services
market through the IDC MarketScape model. Operations improvement is consistently one of the
largest practice areas for business consulting providers. IDC defines operational consulting practices
as the strategy consulting work that takes place prior to deployment of a full BPO/managed services
engagement, starting with the major moves the client needs to make for its operations to run smoother.
This is the reason behind the term operations improvement. While the providers we evaluated all have
capabilities in finance operations, M&S, procurement, and supply chains, there are differences in the
depth and approach each provider offers across these elements. The operations improvement
consulting providers in this study are all strong performers with their own areas of expertise. Choose a
provider that has the capabilities you require, as well as the understanding of the deeper underlying
issues and context of your needs, to be more certain of the project's result.
"The field of operations improvement consulting is experiencing significant growth and demand by
buyers seeking to take advantage of new technologies and ways of doing business," noted Bill
Latshaw, research director, Worldwide Business Consulting Services at IDC. "Businesses across
various industries increasingly recognize the importance of optimizing their operations to remain
competitive and efficient in the market. Operations improvement providers are instrumental in helping
organizations streamline their processes, reduce costs, and enhance overall productivity for now and
the future."
©2023 IDC #US50494723e 8
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