Hola,

Management consulting may be one of the industries currently most vulnerable to disruption — the concept consultants themselves invented. 

In its current form, management consulting has a number of vulnerabilities that render it somewhat inefficient, inflexible, and slow to adapt:

• It is highly dependent on manual and human-dependent processes, which are increasingly being automated and are difficult to scale

• Its high margins are driven by the ability to bill for time rather than results, which is out of step with the pay-for-measurable-outcomes mindset of the digital age

• The value is time-bound as advice expires quickly

• The advice is harder to price aggressively since the internet has commoditized many flavors of strategy and management advice 

Ideally, consulting isn’t just about pretty decks whipped together by fresh Ivy League grads — at its best it offers unique information, expertise, insight, and assistance in execution. Plus, corporate inefficiency and incompetence will always be around to offer consultants easy prey. 

But business analytics software as well as expert networks abound, and more and more companies are growing in-house strategy teams. 

We break down how the field is being disrupted across 4 core functions — and how consulting firms like the Big Three are (trying) to fight back with tech — in this report. 

On the bright side, at least consultants can still walk you through how many tennis balls can fit in a 747 at cocktail parties.

Banking on innovation

US banks are future-proofing by actively investing in fintech.

From insurance to blockchain, we visualize which fintech categories are seeing the strongest momentum — and which are cooling down.

Rethinking the supply chain

The surge in e-commerce has strained retailers, logistics providers, and brands alike. On-demand warehousing could offer a solution. 
 

Expert Intelligence clients can read more about the leaders, innovators, and challengers in the space here.

You’re cute genes

Genomics present a massive opportunity to improve and personalize healthcare. 
 

From diagnostics to precision medicine, clients can read more about where top healthcare VCs are seeing opportunities in genomics here.

Let's hack fintech

We still have room for more teams and challenges at our first ever Global Innovation Challenge.
 

Financial services giants like Galileo, Citi, and Nasdaq have already submitted their real-world financial services problems, and we're welcoming more enterprises to submit as well. Individuals and enterprise teams will try to solve these challenges during the hackathon.
 

Finalists will be announced at our annual Future of Fintech conference (November 16-18). Prizes include $5,000 cash, free tickets to the Future of Fintech, and networking opportunities with senior fintech execs.
 

See more details and register here by October 15.

489 unicorns: Workplace communication company Dialpad became a unicorn after raising $100M at a valuation of $1.2B. Dialpad was one of our 2020 Future Unicorn predictions made in partnership with Fast Company. There are currently 489 unicorns in the world — see the startups we think will join the club here. 

+28%: Grocery delivery platform Instacart closed $200M in fresh funding at a valuation of $17.7B — a 28% increase in valuation since it last raised just 3 months ago. Grocery delivery has seen a surge in demand during the pandemic. We discuss this trend and other industries gaining traction due to Covid-19 in this analysis. 
 

$50M: Envisics, a startup working on holographic heads-up displays for cars, raised $50M with participation from automakers including GM, Hyundai, and SAIC Motor. Tech like augmented reality, biometric authentication, and AI is poised to change how people drive. We dig into the future of the in-car experience in this report. 

$207M: Unqork, a no-code software development platform, raised $207M in a mega-round led by BlackRock. Unqork was part of our latest Fintech 250 cohort of the most promising fintech startups in the world. See all the winners in this market map. 
 

$3.7B: Insurance company Clover Health is set to go public via a merger with a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that values the company at $3.7B. From social determinants of health to Medicare Advantage to pricing transparency, we analyze the emerging trends in US health insurance in this client-exclusive NExTT report. 
 

1 Nobel Prize: This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna for their work developing CRISPR gene-editing techniques. We explain what CRISPR is and how it could impact industries like healthcare and agriculture in this report. 

Every year, people cast hundreds of thousands of votes during Fat Bear Week to choose the heftiest bear at Alaska's Katmai National Park and Preserve, home to about 2,200 brown bears. 

This year, the winning title went to Bear 747, named after the gigantic Boeing 747 cargo plane. In 2019, the heavyweight champion was estimated to weigh more than 1,400 pounds. 
 

One ranger said he was even bigger this year, noting that he was recently seen trying to climb a hill, but had to find a new route because his belly — which is so large that it nearly touches the ground — got stuck. 

Have a great rest of the week.

Marcelo