• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, July 2, 2018

One of the more interesting nuggets of news last week was that Carat has hired a big league consultant-type for the role of president, Carat global: Christine Removille, a cofounder of Accenture Interactive.

It's interesting because the perception is that consultants are encroaching on agency’s turf and presenting a big competitive problem for Adland.

The reality: There is equal opportunity for both consultants and agencies to pursue that go-to key advisor role to marketer C-suites for digital transformation advice and implementation. It’s up for grabs.

Both competitive sets have been gearing up to seize that opportunity for years.

All the major holding companies have been developing consultative operations. Clearly, Publicis placed a big bet in that sector with its Sapient acquisition a few years back. WPP has a number of consultancies within its portfolio, including a recent unit installed at Wunderman that advises and helps implement digital commerce practices call Wunderman Commerce.

On the flip side, the major consultancies like Accenture, IBM and others have developed some of the biggest digital agency operations in the world.

It’s fun to listen to holding company CEOs downplay the competition with consultants when they speak in public. Privately, they know it’s a battle royale they can’t afford to lose.

The hiring of Removille speaks volumes to the point.