Successful client service while 100% remote would prove that weekly travel is a waste of time and money. Am I wrong?

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Think there will be several lasting changes following this outbreak. One of the biggest is a recalibration about what travel is really essential.

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Agree, and much needed.

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We are not onsite for project delivery. Everyone knows it can be done remotely. Not new revelation. We are onsite to enhance client relationships, to sell more work...

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This 100%. You’re there so they can get to know you, rather than some faceless deliverable.

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Yes and no. I think we prove that we could get the work done from home. But getting the work is different, keeping the work is different. We continued to be extended or shown other projects because clients enjoy us and being on site allows them to build that trusting relationship. I think without a presence it becomes so much more transactional which could hurt us because it no longer becomes about who can do the work AND who do o want to do it with to, who is the cheapest and fastest. I also think it would start to put unrealistic expectations on us and proving how we are spending our time away from the office because even if working they can’t see us working. So I don’t see weekly travel going away and I kinda wouldn’t want it to, at least for this industry.

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Agreed. This will hurt us to move to WFH permanently. Without the benefit of relationship building, everything will be about doing it faster and cheaper, which will ultimately fall on staff to produce more, quicker, and with less resources.

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I think a lot of institutional "knowledge" about the necessity of weekly travel is going to go the way of the dodo bird if this drags on for months and the sky doesn't fall on consulting firms.

What I would expect to happen, if the above scenario plays out, is for a substantial number of firms switch to a beginning/end of engagement travel model with the rest out of the home office. There will still be diehard firms that will hold on to weekly travel until their last breath, but the rest of the industry will make the adjustment.

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Interesting...

Came here to say what Pro1 said. No one puts you onsite for delivery. It’s for sales/biz dev. If you’re not sitting in front of the customer, someone else is and they will win future business.

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Shhhh M2 - don’t let the clients hear you

my hypothesis: Consulting salaries will drop if travel gets largely scaled back.

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Agreed !! That work life balance we were talking about al these years is about to get real!!

only took an act of God

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It may be different on the fed side (most of my consulting experience has been on the fed side, with small stints here and there on the commercial side, where I was not in a selling role), but a significant number of engagements I've seen or been a part of have been substantially remote, with even those in leadership/selling roles being remote most of the time, yet the pipeline has continued to grow unchecked.

At least in the federal space, sales and follow-on work can be secured via remote contact with the clients. The important part on that side is that contact is happening with the client, whether remote or face to face.

Fed often has stricter procurement rules that are designed to prevent/reduce favoritism. It’s less important to have as deep of relationships (they’re still valuable, but less) in fed. I wouldn’t extrapolate from fed to commercial.

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Old school partners who are hating wfh will still push for it. Clients, however, will see that full time travel is unnecessary, and hopefully will insist on lower travel expenses going forward.

I thought everyone already knew it was a waste of time. This is great! Just before the virus I was looking for a remote job. Now I’ve got one for however long it lasts. My guess is after doing this for a few months everyone will see that it works just fine and there will be more opportunities.

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