Service Business Talks with Fexingo: Consulting, Agencies, and Professional Services

Episode 32 of Service Business Talks explores a growing trend among top consulting firms: building their own public relations and communications agencies in-house. Lucas and Luna examine McKinsey's 2025 launch of McKinsey Communications Group, which poached senior talent from Edelman and Weber Shandwick, and how Deloitte Digital's PR arm has grown to over 200 people. They discuss why firms are mov...

Episode 31 of Service Business Talks digs into a surprising trend: consulting firms are acquiring or building their own hospitals and clinics. Lucas and Luna explore why firms like McKinsey and Deloitte are moving from advising healthcare systems to operating them. They examine the economics behind the shift — from capturing value in value-based care models to leveraging proprietary data for AI-dr...

Episode 30 of Service Business Talks explores a new strategic shift: top consulting firms are transforming client data into licensable assets. Lucas and Luna examine how McKinsey and Accenture have launched data marketplace platforms, selling anonymized benchmarks, industry indexes, and proprietary datasets to clients and competitors alike. They unpack the economics — firms can earn 8 to 12 figure...

Episode 29 of Service Business Talks with Fexingo: Lucas and Luna explore the surprising trend of consulting firms launching their own banking and lending arms. They zero in on one concrete case: how a top-tier strategy firm built a captive bank to offer working capital and acquisition financing to its clients, and what that means for the traditional consultant-banker relationship. The hosts break...

Episode 28 of Service Business Talks with Fexingo: Why consulting firms are launching their own insurance carriers instead of partnering with existing insurers. Lucas and Luna examine the case of McKinsey's partnership with a Bermuda-based reinsurer, and how Deloitte, PwC, and EY have followed suit with captives and risk-bearing entities. They explore the economics: consulting firms capture underw...

In this episode of Service Business Talks with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna explore why consulting firms—from the Big Four to boutique strategy shops—are building shared services centers for back-office functions like HR, IT, and finance. Using the example of KPMG's Global Delivery Center in Bengaluru, which houses over 15,000 employees, they discuss how these centers cut costs by 30-40%, improve quali...

In this episode of Service Business Talks, Lucas and Luna explore the growing trend of consulting firms acquiring law practices to embed legal services within their consulting offerings. The conversation centers on McKinsey's creation of a new subsidiary, McKinsey Legal Solutions, which now employs over 200 lawyers in the US and UK. Lucas breaks down the numbers: McKinsey's clients are paying an a...

Episode 25 of Service Business Talks with Fexingo dives into the growing trend of consulting firms founding internal staffing agencies to combat talent shortages and reduce reliance on third-party recruiters. Lucas and Luna explore the case of McKinsey's launch of a dedicated talent platform in 2025, which now places over 1,200 former consultants into client roles annually, generating roughly $80...

In this episode of Service Business Talks, Lucas and Luna explore a growing trend: consulting firms launching their own online learning platforms. Lucas dives into Deloitte's launch of Deloitte Academy in 2025, a platform offering over 200 courses on AI, strategy, and digital transformation. He breaks down why a firm with $65 billion in annual revenue is investing in education: it's a client reten...

In this episode of Service Business Talks with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna explore why major consulting firms like McKinsey, Deloitte, and Accenture are increasingly setting up their own insurance captives — in-house entities that underwrite risk for their own operations and, in some cases, their clients. The conversation focuses on a specific case: Deloitte's 2024 decision to create a Bermuda-based c...

In this episode of Service Business Talks with Fexingo, Lucas and Luna explore a growing trend in professional services: large consulting firms acquiring marketing and advertising agencies. They anchor on the 2023 acquisition of creative agency Droga5 by Accenture Interactive, and discuss how the $475 million deal reshaped the competitive landscape between traditional consultancies and ad holding...

Episode 21 of Service Business Talks with Fexingo. Lucas and Luna explore why major consulting firms—including McKinsey and BCG—are investing millions to build proprietary large language models rather than relying solely on off-the-shelf AI from OpenAI or Google. The hosts break down the strategic calculus: client data privacy, customization for industry-specific workflows, and the race to own the...

Episode 20 of Service Business Talks explores a growing trend in professional services: consulting firms hiring their own former clients as partners and principals. Lucas and Luna examine why firms like McKinsey, BCG, and Deloitte are increasingly recruiting ex-corporate executives rather than traditional MBA pipelines. They dive into a specific case: the 2024 hiring spree by McKinsey's Operations...

Episode 19 of Service Business Talks with Fexingo: Lucas and Luna examine why top consulting firms are bypassing traditional hiring channels and building their own talent pipelines. Lucas opens with the example of Accenture's apprenticeship program in the US, which has placed over 1,200 people without four-year degrees into client-facing roles since 2023. They explore how EY's 'Career Path Acceler...

Why are top consulting firms like McKinsey, BCG, and Bain building internal private equity capabilities? In this episode, Lucas and Luna explore a quiet but powerful trend: consultancies launching co-investment arms and dedicated PE advisory practices. Lucas breaks down how McKinsey's 2025 move to set up a dedicated co-investment team—deploying over $2 billion alongside PE firms—signals a structur...

Lucas and Luna explore the rise of venture studios inside top consulting firms. They break down how firms like McKinsey and BCG are building startups from scratch alongside clients, moving beyond traditional advisory into equity-backed co-creation. The episode digs into the economics: why a venture studio model lets firms capture upside that billable hours never could, how it changes risk profiles...

In this episode of Service Business Talks, Lucas and Luna explore why top consulting firms like McKinsey and Deloitte are now hiring clinical psychologists and behavioral scientists as full-time staff. They dive into a specific case: McKinsey's 2024 launch of a 12-person Behavioral Insights Team, which has since grown to 30. The team embeds with client engagements to address change management resi...

Episode 15 of Service Business Talks digs into a surprising trend: major consulting firms acquiring niche software-as-a-service products outright. Lucas and Luna examine why Accenture bought a specialized procurement platform, what the acquisition structure looks like, and how integrating SaaS changes the firm-client relationship. They unpack a concrete example: a $350 million deal for a supply-ch...

Episode 14 of Service Business Talks with Fexingo. Lucas and Luna explore why top consulting firms like McKinsey and Deloitte are investing millions in custom client portals — digital workspaces where clients can track project milestones, access deliverables, and communicate with the team in real time. Lucas breaks down the economics: a typical portal costs $500,000 to build and maintain, but firm...

Episode 13 of Service Business Talks dives into a quiet but accelerating trend: the world's biggest consulting firms are acquiring small and mid-sized accounting practices. Lucas and Luna examine the specific case of Bain & Company buying a 50-person tax advisory firm in Dallas last month, and why Deloitte has acquired 14 regional accounting firms since 2022. They break down the strategy—these acq...

Episode 12 of Service Business Talks with Fexingo: Lucas and Luna explore why top consulting firms are increasingly hiring former operators — ex-CFOs, ex-COOs, ex-plant managers — instead of traditional MBA graduates. They dive into McKinsey's 'Owner Operator' program, launched in 2024, which now accounts for 12% of senior hires, and how Bain's 'Practitioner Track' embeds retired executives into c...

Episode 11 of Service Business Talks with Fexingo. Lucas and Luna examine why top consulting firms like McKinsey and Deloitte have acquired over a dozen insurance brokerages since 2022. They unpack the specific numbers—McKinsey's purchase of BMA Group, Deloitte's deal for The Greenhouse—and explain the strategic logic: recurring revenue, regulatory hard walls, and cross-sell to CFOs. They also dis...

Episode 10 of Service Business Talks explores how Booz Allen Hamilton, the oldest strategy consulting firm in America, went from zero to a proprietary AI platform called 'Booz Allen AI' in just 18 months. Lucas and Luna break down the $400 million investment, the decision to build instead of buy, and why the firm open-sourced parts of the codebase. They also discuss what this move means for smalle...

Lucas and Luna explore a controversial trend in professional services: consulting firms acquiring client companies. They dig into the case of Accenture’s 2025 purchase of a mid-market telecom operator, a deal that blurred the line between advisor and competitor. The hosts discuss the strategic rationale — from capturing recurring revenue to owning implementation outcomes — and the ethical tensions...

Lucas and Luna explore why major consulting firms are moving away from the traditional billable hour toward value-based and fixed-fee pricing. The episode digs into the specific case of Slalom Consulting, which switched to a fully transparent, fixed-price model for over 80 percent of its engagements by 2025. They discuss how this shift changes incentives for consultants, what it means for client r...