Workshop and discussion reviewing how consultancies and consultants are employing generative AI and agentic AI and predicting the future for AI-enabled consulting.
SPEAKER
Dr. Alan Warr BA MBA MSc PhD MBCS CITP
AGENDA
6.30 – Welcome & notice
6.40 – Workshop
7.40 – Discussion & next steps
8.00 – Workshop ends with networking
SYNOPSIS
Some notable AI industry leaders have predicted the end of management consultancy! But two recent AI expert panels at the BCS concluded differently that AI is both a threat and an opportunity for consultants.
Our speaker served on both panels and picks up from those discussions and aims to start to ground this work, so that consultants can act to counter the threats and (as with past waves of global change) seize the opportunities and provide leadership to their clients on AI.
Indeed, our speaker will boldly suggest a new “golden age” for consultants awaits, if the profession gets this challenge right.
The content of the workshop will be practitioner and practice focused:
· Review of workshop attendees’ usage & “lessons to date” on AI
· Benchmarking against evidence of wider utilisation of generative & agentic AI
· Case based review of the consulting industry’s current efforts & strategies on AI
· Theoretical propositions for AI’s value as a new capability in consultancies
· Introductory demonstrations on developing AI consultant co-workers and the potential for Agentic AI enabled consultancies.
· Workshop activities on the actions consultancies and consultants must be taking now
Although this workshop will combine some technical demos, the time available limits these and means the workshop will sometimes need to be at a conceptual and introductory level. So, this workshop is aiming at consultants and other professionals needing an “on-ramp” to ensure they are not left behind or want pointers to how they can get an “early mover advantage”.
Specialists and experts in AI may find the content too introductory. Non consultants are welcomed but the cases and focus will be the practice of consultancy, and such attendees will need to adapt it to their personal context. The content will be vendor agnostic.
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Alan Warr is the past Chair and current Treasurer of the BCS Consultancy Specialist Group. He has four decades of consultancy experience specialising in IT and AI transformations. He has worked for major consultancies such as PA, BT, Capita, KPMG. And he has also been an internal consultant with Revlon, Bupa and the NHS. He worked himself up the consultancy ranks from analyst to the leadership of significant practices. In recent years, he has been an independent consultant.
And he has contributed to the work of the BCS as a volunteer for many years. Academically, he holds an MSc in Computer Science, a Cranfield MBA and an LBS PhD in the strategic management of technology. His current main area of research is in applying AI to transforming consultancy into a service industry available to all.
Our events are for adults aged 16 years and over.
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Please note, if you have any accessibility needs, please let us know via groups@bcs.uk and we’ll work with you to make suitable arrangements.
For overseas delegates who wish to attend the event, please note that BCS does not issue invitation letters.
The event is brought to you by the BCS Consultancy Specialist Group (CONSIG) and is part of its CPD programme.
