Consulting Firms: It’s time to digitally transform your old template macros

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Much of the global consulting industry has built a reputation around digital transformation expertise. Yet paradoxically, even firms that specialize in digital transformation are still grappling with how best to digitally transform their own business models.

One area of the consulting business model that will immediately benefit from a digital transformation is the process of creating client deliverables. These pitch decks, engagement SOWs, kick-off presentations, project updates, final presentation decks (and every other document in between) are fundamental to every client engagement. But their manual, time-intensive nature also makes them a perpetual threat to profitability.

To protect margins, consultancies leaned on their IT departments to automate meaningful portions of the deliverables process. As a result, template macros and homegrown template management systems exist inside many of today’s leading firms.

But while the spirit behind these macros and systems was sound, their lack of flexibility, compatibility, and scalability proved anything but. And there are three reasons why:

1. Macros are inflexible: Most macros and systems were built to only perform rigid processes within specific templates, and aren’t flexible enough to support new use-cases without an expensive IT investment.

2. Software compatibility issues abound: These macros and systems often struggle with major software updates, and typically prove completely incompatible with new Microsoft Office versions. As a result, malfunctions routinely waste consultants’ time, while forcing IT to focus on break/fix at the expense of other, more strategic or client-related projects.

3. No ability to scale across an organization: Because each geography, country, or even specific office typically has its own internal macros or systems “on-prem”, and also because these macros and systems can rarely (if ever) track usage and performance data, there is almost no ability to identify best practices, much less share them across the broader organization.

Template macros are the past; digital template automation is the future

Given how crucial an efficient document creation process is to profitability, it’s time for consulting firms to sunset their macros and embrace a new, transformative approach. And the right digital template automation solution can add both immediate, and lasting value.

But to make sure that this solution is truly transformative, it must be able to go beyond a one-for-one replacement of macros, and be scalable enough to support future organizational needs. Therefore, a solution must offer all of the following six components:

1. Configurable templates, automated: I’ve written before about how complex documents can have many permutations based upon various client engagement details. For this reason, a solution must enable meaningful portions of a document to be automatically assembled with appropriate formatting, legal and regulatory language, content, data, and visual assets, all based upon a variety of user inputs.

2. And though this functionality is table stakes for macro or system replacement, most firms will eventually need to go beyond. For this reason, the template automation solution must be highly configurable to accommodate new automation needs surrounding new templates and use-cases, without requiring a dedicated software development team or major IT commitment.

3. Compatibility with multiple applications: Different offices within a firm operate on different versions of Microsoft Office. Some offices use G Suite applications as well. A solution must therefore be compatible with a variety of different Office versions, as well as G Suite, to ensure that each office can benefit regardless of their chosen document applications.

4. Performance analysis + a system that actually scales: Most macros were not built with the ability to gather and analyze user performance data, which means most consulting firms are in the dark about how their professionals are utilizing their templates and other best-practice content. Also, as outlined earlier, the “on-prem” nature of these macros inhibits the ability to share best-practices across the broader organization. For these reasons, the right solution will be distributed through the cloud, and also enable rich performance analysis. Both are necessary to ensure that document processes working well for one practice can potentially be rolled out across an office, a geography, or an entire firm.

5. Unleashed IT bandwidth: IT teams are incredibly busy, and time spent implementing, maintaining, or upgrading template macros and systems shouldn’t be a core focus. Cloud-based software can alleviate IT teams of this burden. Implementations and upgrades will no longer require an IT member to maintain each machine. With security checks in place, cloud-based delivery enables easier implementation and handles all aspects of software management, while also automatically pushing upgrades to the user. This allows IT leaders to reallocate precious resources away from macro maintenance, focusing instead on on higher-value strategic work.

6. Robust integrations: Today’s complex client deliverables are drawing upon more data sets and regulatory information, from more information sources, than ever before. The ability to access data from various sources and automatically create or update a business document requires robust integration capabilities in addition to document application expertise. A solution must fuse these two components to help a consulting firm deliver a better client experience. And having this industry leading capability also ensures that new data-driven use-cases can be met in the future.

7. Data sovereignty: Consulting firms go to incredible lengths to protect their client’s information, and a document automation solution must align with these efforts. With so many geographical considerations surrounding data integration, access, transmission, and storage, the right solution provider will be an expert at supporting global business data requirements. 

For consultancies that espouse the benefits of digital transformation, and also practice what they preach, now is the time to replace clunky, outdated macros with an elegant digital solution capable of scaling with future needs.

If you’re curious about how your consulting firm should approach a document automation process, or how other companies have been successful in their approach, let’s connect.