Collaborative strategy consulting services model and framework for small and medium business in emerging market

Strategy consulting services are a high-end knowledge-intensive business. Consulting service providers (CSPs) regard them as vital business because they can lead to additional business and sales opportunities. However, because of dramatic growth in the small and medium business (SMB) market in the emerging market and because of how labor intensive the current consulting services model is, it is becoming increasingly challenging to offer strategy consulting services. This paper proposes a collaborative consulting services model and framework in a service ecosystem consisting of CSPs, local business partners (BPs), and SMBs. This consulting service model is enabled by an Web-based consulting services platform. The integrated platform framework and key technical components are presented in the paper. © 2010 IEEE.