Strategies for creative endeavors transcend the limitations of management consulting.

This time, we introduce frog's consulting business by comparing it to traditional management consulting. Creative thinking unique to a design firm is now creating a new consulting model.

Why Management Consulting Firms Embrace Design

In recent years, management consulting firms have increasingly prioritized design. Even established strategy consultancies like McKinsey are advancing their work on customer journey mapping and customer experience design. Meanwhile, design consultancies have long applied their proprietary design toolkits to strategic business challenges.

When I first joined frog as a strategist in 2009, I was surprised to see top Fortune 500 companies consulting a design firm on fundamental strategic questions like "Which areas should we operate in?" or "How can we win competitively?" Today, this trend is commonplace, and the boundary between management consulting and design consulting is increasingly blurred.

This is because both address the same challenges for the same clients, cross-pollinating their respective techniques. However, the underlying approach to tackling these challenges differs significantly, and this difference is crucial. Why? Because it leads to different outcomes.

Traditional Management Consultant Approach

Traditional strategy toolkits are analytical. Business schools teach strategists data-driven thinking methods. Management consultants trained in this approach conduct detailed investigations to accurately grasp the global landscape, then develop strategic plans based on As-is analysis (current state analysis). This includes industry analysis to understand market dynamics, value chain and profit pool analysis to identify where value is created and captured, and competitive analysis to precisely understand direct and indirect competition within specific markets.

Management consultants scrutinize client data, striving to understand spending trends, needs, desires, and behavioral patterns. Based on the insights gained, they segment the market into more attractive customer groups and less attractive ones.

Once the world's realities are accurately grasped through analysis, management consultants seek opportunities for their clients to seize. The concept involves analyzing how to move from the As-is state (current reality) to the To-be state (goal), whether in a Red Ocean (highly competitive existing market) or a Blue Ocean (untapped market with no competition). This is a meticulous, deductive analytical process where every proposal is justified by data obtained during the initial research phase. It can also reveal underlying mental models—fixed assumptions—that treat the entire world as a fixed canvas or map. Within that canvas or map lie the business domains worth pursuing, which must be identified.

The world designers envision, full of possibilities

Designers don't see the world as a fixed canvas. They are the optimistic ones who believe the world is full of possibilities, something we can shape and change according to our will. Design consultants begin by seeking inspiration that brings ideas and concepts about the world's "ideal state." Inspiration may come from both within and outside the industry. Social trends can trigger ideas, or inspiration might strike while visiting the field and focusing attention on potential customers.

At this stage, design consultants bounce around the As-is state with excitement, generating a flood of ideas about the Should-be state. Only after this creative idea generation phase is complete do we apply analytical tools to evaluate those ideas.

Is there a market or business model to support this idea? Does the client possess the appropriate assets and capabilities to realize this valuable proposal? Is the technology required to implement this idea sufficiently mature? How will this idea alter industry dynamics and the competitive landscape? Here, traditional strategic tools are employed to evaluate ideas, with the goal of identifying what is needed to bring them to fruition.

Read the full article in the web magazine "AXIS".

This article presents content originally published in "DesignMind," a design journal operated by frog, translated by Transmedia Digital under the supervision of Mr. Noriaki Okada of Dentsu Inc. Experience Design Department.

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