Beyond Consulting: Building Strategic Institutional Capacity

Beyond Consulting: Building Strategic Institutional Capacity

As our region undergoes sweeping transformations—driven by bold national visions like Vision 2030—the consulting industry has emerged as a dominant player in shaping strategic planning and execution.

But the critical question we often avoid is: For how long? And is this path truly sustainable?

Investment or Substitution?

Engaging external consultants can enrich organizations with perspective, speed, and expertise. However, when consulting becomes a permanent replacement for internal strategic capacity, we are not investing—we are outsourcing our institutional thinking under the pretext of neutrality or global best practices.

The continued expansion of consulting, whether through global or local firms, often reflects an inability or unwillingness, to build in-house strategic arms. Worse, it can serve as a convenient way to offload responsibility, shielding decision-makers behind the recommendations of "neutral third parties."

Time to Redefine the Role of the Consultant

This calls for a fundamental rethinking of what it means to be a "consultant" in today's organizations:

• Why can’t consultants be part of the internal structure, not as traditional staff, but as embedded strategic thinkers?

• Why aren’t we designing roles that embed a consulting mindset deep into the organizational culture, instead of importing it project by project?

Training Is Not Enough

While nationalization programs are necessary, many of them focus on form over substance. The consulting mindset cannot be built through standard training alone. It requires re-engineering institutional thinking—developing analytical ability, strategic foresight, and a culture of critical dialogue across public and private entities alike.

Why Assume Consulting Will Always Be This Big?

It’s important to ask: Why do we assume that consulting, as an industry, will - or should - remain this large in the first place? If organizations still rely heavily on consultants for every major strategic move, what has truly changed in their internal DNA?

From Buying Solutions to Building Capabilities

The real transformation lies not in cutting consulting budgets, but in shifting from a consumption mindset to a capacity-building mindset. This means developing in-house strategic teams, embedding critical thinking into operations, and aligning capability-building efforts with long-term national goals.

In Conclusion

Consulting is not the enemy. But it must not become a permanent crutch used to avoid accountability or delay decision-making. The real change begins when we stop viewing the consultant as an external savior and start developing the internal consultant within every institution.