Donato BlandolinoAI takes over analysis, benchmarks and slides. What it does not take over: implementation, conflicts and responsibility. Four questions to help you assess whether your external support is replaceable.
Will artificial intelligence replace consultancy? In part, yes. Anyone who compiles data, compares benchmarks, analyses processes and turns it all into forty slides faces a problem, because AI can already do exactly that faster, more cheaply and, in some cases, better. What it cannot do is the part where transformations actually fail: implementation.
The difference can be illustrated by a case we encountered recently.
Why even a perfect analysis can fail
We saw an analysis where everything was right. Clean data, causes identified, measures defined, a convincing presentation. Everyone nodded.
Three months later, almost nothing had been implemented.
Not because the analysis was wrong, but because the real work would only have begun afterwards. The measures affected several departments. Responsibilities needed to change. Decisions were uncomfortable. And nobody wanted to tackle the necessary conflict.
For us, this is precisely where consulting begins: not with insight, but with implementation. That is the difference between knowing what should be done and making sure it actually happens.
What AI does not take on
- AI is not on the shop floor at six in the morning when production fails to start up properly.
- AI does not have a difficult conversation with a production manager whose department needs to be reorganised.
- AI does not resolve the long-standing conflict between production, logistics, procurement and IT.
- AI does not take responsibility for a decision whose effects only become visible weeks later.
- And AI does not win back a team that has already been through three transformations and can only muster a weary smile at the fourth presentation.
None of these are peripheral issues. They are the points at which transformations falter in practice. Analysis is almost never the bottleneck; implementation almost always is.
The debate is not new
Every wave of technology came with the same promise. SAP was supposed to replace process knowledge. Dashboards were supposed to replace management. Automation was supposed to replace operational leadership.
Each time, something else happened: technology primarily replaces activities that involve collecting, structuring and passing on information. No wave has yet transferred responsibility for decisions and their consequences to technology.
That is precisely why AI will change the consulting industry, along a clear dividing line. Consultants or interim managers who mainly analyse, document and present will become increasingly interchangeable. Those who take responsibility, drive decisions, bring people together and keep working in production, logistics, supply chain or project organisations until the change actually works will become more important.
Every wave of technology makes good professionals more productive. And mediocrity more visible.
How to tell whether your support could be replaced by AI
For companies engaging external support, four questions can help identify this dividing line. They work just as well in a selection interview as when reviewing an ongoing assignment.
What does the service provider deliver after the presentation? If the answer essentially amounts to “recommendations and a final document”, the service ends where the work begins.
Who takes responsibility if a measure does not work? If the answer points to your organisation, you are buying analysis, not implementation.
Is someone from the service provider on site when things get stuck, or at the steering committee when reports are presented? The difference between those two places is the difference between support and observation.
And the toughest question: would the outcome look different if the same analysis came from an AI tool? If the honest answer is no, you are paying consulting fees for something that will soon cost no more than a tool.
Related:
What this means when choosing support
The crucial question to ask a service provider is therefore no longer how good their analysis is. AI raises the standard of analysis for everyone, including your own organisation. The question is what remains when analysis becomes a given.
At SMART iNTERIM, the answer is clear: Leadership. Responsibility. Implementation. Personality.
We use the new tools ourselves where they speed up analysis and preparation. The time saved goes where technology cannot reach: onto the shop floor, into conversations, into decisions and into taking responsibility for ensuring that a change continues to work after we leave.
What remains of your external support when AI takes over the analysis?
About SMART iNTERIM
SMART iNTERIM Management is a transformation partner for manufacturing: Operational Transformation, SAP and Enterprise Transformation, Program & Project Management, as well as Interim Management and Executive Search. We bring hands-on experience, not a detached perspective. Headquartered in Switzerland, with an office in Dubai.
