Working for the Client, Losing the Consulting Firm
When your employer slowly disappears
There is a situation in consulting that is both common and rarely named. You are allocated full-time to a single client. Not for a few intense weeks, but for months, sometimes years. Your calendar, priorities, and daily rhythm are entirely shaped by that one organization.
On paper, it looks like success. The client trusts you. You are deeply embedded. There is continuity, efficiency, and no wasted context switching. Many consulting firms actively aim for exactly this.
What is less often discussed is what happens on the other side of that setup.
Becoming Part of the Client’s Everyday Reality
The first phase is usually pleasant. You learn how things really work. You know who actually makes decisions, which things matter, and which ones only exist in slides. Meetings become easier, communication more informal. You are no longer “the consultant” but simply someone people work with.
If you are physically present at the client’s premises, this effect is amplified. Coffee breaks, hallway conversations, and shared frustrations create a sense of belonging. You start using “we” without thinking much about who it refers to.
From the client’s perspective, this is often ideal. From the consultant’s perspective, it feels like effectiveness. But it is also where a subtle shift begins.
The Consulting Firm Moves to the Background
While your role at the client deepens, your connection to your employer—the consulting firm—often does the opposite. Not because of conflict or disappointment, but because of simple arithmetic: your attention is finite, and most of it is spent elsewhere.
Colleagues are busy on other projects, facing different problems, working in different contexts. There is little time to keep up with internal emails. Discussions happen while you are in client meetings. Development initiatives, informal knowledge sharing, and small cultural moments pass by without you noticing.
Gradually, your consulting firm turns into a background structure. It pays your salary, handles contracts, and reminds you to log hours. Professionally and emotionally, however, your day-to-day reference point is no longer there. The transition is usually so smooth that it is hard to say when it actually happened.
Fewer Touchpoints, Less Visibility
Over time, this distance becomes concrete. You simply meet your own people less. Colleagues, leadership, even your direct supervisor fade into the background of your everyday work. In the worst case, your manager appears mainly in formal development discussions, once or twice a year, trying to reconstruct what you have actually been doing.
Visibility upwards is often limited as well. Client work happens out of sight, by definition. Ironically, being deeply embedded at a client—doing exactly what consulting is supposed to be about—can make your contribution less visible inside your own firm. This can quietly affect career progression, recognition, and future opportunities, even when performance at the client is excellent.
A Shift in Professional Identity
At some point, many consultants realize that most of their professional validation comes from the client. Tasks, feedback, appreciation, pressure, and even stress originate from that direction. The client organization becomes the place where success and failure are defined.
This is not inherently wrong. But it does change how you see your role. The consulting firm is no longer where your professional identity is actively shaped. It is where you are employed, not where you belong in practice.
The risk is not loyalty or disloyalty, but unconscious adaptation. You start optimizing for the client’s internal logic, constraints, and narratives, often without noticing it yourself. This connects closely to questions of professional distance and dual loyalty.
Why This Rarely Feels Like a Problem—At First
One reason this issue often stays invisible is that it does not announce itself as a problem. There is no dramatic conflict, no clear dissatisfaction. On the contrary, things usually run smoothly.
The effects surface later. Engagement with your consulting firm weakens. Interest in its long-term direction fades. Internal initiatives start to feel distant or irrelevant. When people talk about “us,” you may notice that your mental reference quietly points somewhere else.
In more extreme cases, consultants find themselves mentally halfway out the door, without ever having consciously decided to leave.
Naming the Phenomenon Matters
This is not about blaming consultants for “not being committed enough,” nor about accusing firms of poor management. It is a structural consequence of how consulting work is often organized.
A 100 % client allocation is not a neutral arrangement. It shapes professional identity, loyalty, and perspective over time. Ignoring that fact does not make it disappear.
Simply naming the phenomenon already helps. It allows both consultants and firms to think more deliberately about how work is structured, how connections are maintained, and what kind of consulting culture they actually want to build.
Not every problem needs an immediate solution. Some just need to be acknowledged before they quietly do their work in the background.
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👨💻About the Author
Eetu Niemi is an enterprise architect, consultant, and author.
Follow him elsewhere: Homepage | LinkedIn | Substack (enterprise architecture ) | Medium (writing) | Homepage (FI)
Books: Enterprise Architecture | Technology Consultant Fast Track | Successful Technology Consulting | Kokonaisarkkitehtuuri (FI) | Pohjoisen tie (FI) | Little Cthulhu’s Breakfast Time
Web resources: Enterprise Architecture Info Package (FI)