This blog offers a reflection on how organizational scale may influence working dynamics between companies and consultancies, and what consultancies can do to adapt their role, demonstrate value, and set realistic expectations to build more meaningful engagements. The goal isn’t to stereotype potential partners, but to share patterns I’ve observed over the years so individuals can better navigate these contexts and show up more effectively within them.
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned in working with partners from early-stage startups to Fortune 100 giants is this: who you’re working with deeply shapes how the work and collaboration unfolds.
That might sound obvious, but it’s easy to overlook, especially for younger consultancies starting to navigate corporate partnerships. While no two organizations are the same, certain patterns seem to emerge when you look at a company’s scale. In my experience, the size and maturity of a company influence key factors such as the speed of engagement, the expectations placed on consultants, the power dynamics at play, appetite for change, and tolerance for ambiguity.
Large Corporations
Large corporations often have the resources and infrastructure to take on substantial work but don’t tend to move quickly. For instance, initiating a partnership (e.g., getting a project scoped, approved, and budgeted) can take months due to layers of internal review, strict fiscal calendars, and established protocols. While the payoff is stability and potential visibility within the organization, navigating this process requires patience, persistence, and careful translation of your language and approach to resonate with the priorities of various stakeholders.
Once working with the organization, expectations for consultancies are typically high in terms of quality, efficiency, and rigor. However, consultants can sometimes be viewed as additional hands to execute tasks rather than strategic partners, making it essential to proactively clarify your role and demonstrate broader value early on. Relatedly, internal power dynamics can be complex and involve multiple decision-makers. At its best, this dynamic brings several perspectives together for well-rounded decisions. At its worst, politics or hierarchy can outweigh evidence or external insights. In such cases, it’s important to remember that at the end of the day the client owns the solution; our role as consultants is to provide exceptional guidance and recommendations so they can make informed decisions.
While the need for upfront or contextual research depends on the project’s goals, many large organizations initially resist it, often confident that their experience provides sufficient insight. Yet immersion in a topic area can lead to blind spots, making an “outsider” perspective essential for revealing normalized biases and assumptions. This is where consultants add value: providing objective insights that open new ideas and avenues for consideration.
What consultancies can do:
Medium-sized companies
Medium-sized companies occupy a unique space between startups and large corporations. They’ve moved beyond the initial scramble of early-stage ventures but haven’t yet been slowed down by bureaucracy. This position allows them to be more nimble and make decisions relatively quickly, especially when priorities are clear. In these companies, leadership remains closely involved, which can make it easier for consultancies to engage directly with key decision-makers.
At the same time, these organizations are often navigating significant growth and transformation, whether it’s scaling teams, entering new markets, or redefining their value proposition. This creates an exciting but sometimes unstable environment, where teams face resource constraints, competing demands, and the challenge of balancing ambition with operational discipline. Their appetite for change is generally strong, but tolerance for ambiguity varies: some embrace uncertainty and experimentation, while others prefer quicker, more tangible solutions that can sometimes overlook foundational needs like additional research or organizational alignment.
In these environments, the most effective partners understand that medium-sized companies are often in transition and strive to provide structure and project ownership without sacrificing agility. As a consultant, keeping in mind the goals of helping organizations focus their energy, build shared understanding, and make decisions that support sustainable growth is essential for reaching shared success.
What consultancies can do:
Startups
Startups operate with a strong sense of urgency. Teams are small, timelines tight, and stakes can often feel existential. If they’re fresh off a funding round, there’s an eagerness to move quickly, make decisive choices, and demonstrate tangible results. But funding often comes in bursts, and when the money slows, so can the work. Consultants may find engagements accelerating to a sprint one month, then stalling the next as priorities and budgets shift.
In these environments, limited resources often heighten expectations for consultants, who are relied upon to hit the ground running and close critical skill gaps. While there’s often deep appreciation and respect for consultants, the power dynamic typically rests with founders and early leaders, whose vision drives decisions. Still, many show a healthy appetite for change and embrace of uncertainty, especially when it aligns with a potential for growth.
The pressure that startups face often shapes which work gains traction. As a result, some activities may need reframing to clearly demonstrate the value you bring. For example, from a consulting perspective, research and strategy often take a backseat to outputs more immediately visible to investors, such as mockups or demos. To add value, research should be positioned as a fast, iterative tool for de-risking assumptions and sharpening market fit, rather than something perceived as a slow, academic exercise.
Overall, with less formal process and more improvisation, the work can be liberating yet chaotic, making early alignment on goals and expectations critical for success.
What consultancies can do:
Across all contexts, one constant remains: the integrity of the human-centered design process. Whether partnering with a scrappy three-person startup or a global corporation, the fundamentals stay the same. What changes is how that process shows up: how fast it moves, how many people are in the room, what gets prioritized, and what’s at stake.
For consultancies like ours, success isn’t just about providing a great deliverable; it’s about understanding the ecosystem we’re entering, navigating its unique constraints with care, and adapting our posture without compromising our practice.
Part of how R+R achieves this is by recognizing that every organization has its own rhythm between speed, depth, and scale. Our role isn’t to force them into our process, but to bring a steady, intentional practice that meets them where they are…while guiding them to a place they couldn’t reach on their own.