Requirements for Digital IT Consulting Services and their Provision through Digital Consulting Platforms - Results from a focus group study

IT consulting companies deal with the digital transformation of their clients’ business and services. However, the IT consulting business itself and, in particular, the IT consulting services provided, have so far only been digitized to a limited extent. Despite the increased research interest in digital transformation, the requirements for digitalization of IT consulting services are hardly known.This paper reports results from an exploratory study that used focus groups (FGs) of IT consulting practitioners to identify their expectations and requirements for digitalized IT consulting services and digital IT consulting platforms. Our study revealed 79 requirements and expectations that our FG participants deemed important for the successful digitalization of services in their organizations. Our findings are related to the structure of digital IT consulting services, the services provisioning process, actor collaboration, user experience and guidance, the sales and marketing process, technical conditions, and digital consulting asset protection and security.The central contributions of our paper are (1) the elicitation of requirements and expectations of IT consulting practitioners for digital IT consulting services and platforms, and (2) a catalog of functional, non-functional as well as technical requirements that can be used to develop scientific artifacts that could serve as digital transformation solutions and give impulses to IT consulting practitioners striving to digitalize their business.