Hire a digital strategy consultant when technology is changing how your customers buy, how your rivals compete, or what your products are, and leadership has to decide where to invest. Skip it when you already know what to build and need someone to build it.
Expect a short list of bets tied to revenue or cost, a view of what your current systems can and cannot support, and a sequence for funding the work. Judge the result by whether it changes the budget.
What they do
A digital strategy consultant decides with leadership where software, data and AI should change the business, and in what order.
Find the bets. They look at how customers buy, where competitors are using technology against you, and which processes cost the most. Each candidate gets a value case and an owner.
Check the foundations. They assess whether your systems and data can support the bets. GAO reports that the US federal government spends over $100 billion a year on IT, and most of it goes to operating and maintaining existing systems.
Set the rules for AI. A common reference is the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, a voluntary US framework for managing AI risks, released in January 2023.
Sequence and fund. They turn the bets into a roadmap with budgets, teams and measures.
What they do not do. Strategy-only advisors do not write the software. If the firm also builds, treat its build recommendations with care.
When to hire, and when not to
Hire when
- A competitor has moved sales, service or pricing online, and you are losing customers to it.
- Leadership is funding many separate digital and AI projects with no shared view of which ones matter most.
- The board is asking what the company's AI plan is, and the answer is a list of pilots.
- Most of the technology budget runs existing systems, and nobody has a plan to change that.
- You are deciding whether to build a digital product, buy one, or partner, and the choice will shape the business for years.
Skip it when
- You know what to build and need engineers. Hire a delivery partner or build the team.
- You need one system replaced, such as a CRM or ERP. Hire a specialist in that system.
- You want a technology trends briefing. Buy industry research instead.
- Leadership will not move budget or people to the bets the strategy picks.
How engagements are set up
Digital diagnostic
A fixed-scope review of where the business stands against customers and competitors, and of what the current systems can support. Ends with a short list of bets.
Strategy and roadmap project
Builds the value case for each bet, sequences the work, and sets budgets and measures. Fits companies ready to commit capital.
AI strategy and governance
Picks the AI uses worth funding and sets the rules for data, risk and approval. Fits companies running many pilots with no policy.
Strategy plus delivery
The same firm designs the strategy and builds the first products. Faster to start. Ask how recommendations are kept independent from the build fees.
Fractional digital leader
An experienced chief digital or technology officer works part time for a fixed term. Fits mid-market companies that need a leader more than a study.
What it costs
Strategy work is priced as a fixed fee per phase or billed by time. Consulting Success reports that 36% of consultants price by project, 26% by value and 23% by the hour. It also reports that 88% do not list fees on their websites.
Ask for the strategy fee on its own, separate from any build estimate. Ask who owns the roadmap, the models and any code written during the work.
Before you talk to firms
- Your technology budget split between running existing systems and building new ones.
- A list of current digital and AI projects, their owners, cost and status.
- What customers and sales teams say they cannot do digitally today.
- The 2 or 3 business results leadership most wants technology to change.
- A named executive who will own the roadmap and the budget that comes with it.
Questions to ask in the pitch meeting
- Which digital strategies have you set for companies in our industry in the last 3 years, and what did those companies fund afterward?
- Can I speak to 2 clients who decided not to hire you for delivery?
- How do you put a value on a digital bet, and what evidence would make you drop one?
- How will you assess our current systems and data, and who on your team has run technology in a company like ours?
- How will you decide which AI uses are worth funding, and how will you handle risk and data rules?
- Do you receive fees or partner benefits from any software or cloud vendor you might recommend?
- What will our own team be able to run when you leave?
- Which measures will show in 12 months that the strategy is working?
Warning signs
- The strategy is a list of technologies, not a list of business results.
- Every recommendation ends in a large build program the same firm would deliver.
- They have partner status with a software vendor whose products appear in the recommendations, and they do not disclose it.
- They cannot name the cost of running your current systems or say how the plan frees budget from them.
- AI is presented as a set of pilots with no plan for data, risk or scale.
- No one on the team has run technology inside a company, only advised.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between digital strategy and IT strategy?
Digital strategy decides where technology should change the business: products, channels, pricing and operations. IT strategy decides how technology is run: systems, architecture, security and cost. A digital strategy that ignores the cost of running existing systems will not get funded.
How many businesses are using AI?
The US Census Bureau's Business Trends and Outlook Survey found that 17% to 20% of US businesses used AI between December 2025 and May 2026. Use rises with size: 37% of firms with at least 250 employees reported using AI. Information and finance and insurance firms were above the national rate.
Do we need an AI governance framework?
If you use AI in decisions that affect customers or employees, yes. The NIST AI Risk Management Framework is voluntary. NIST released version 1.0 in January 2023, added a generative AI profile in July 2024, and says the framework is being revised. A consultant can adapt it to your business. You do not need one to read it.
Should the firm that writes our digital strategy also build it?
It can speed up the start, but it creates a conflict. A firm paid mostly for delivery has a reason to recommend large builds. Price the strategy work on its own, keep the option to use another firm for delivery, and ask for references from clients who did.
How do we know the strategy worked?
Set the measures before the work starts: revenue from digital channels, cost per transaction, time to launch, share of budget spent on new work. Review them at 6 and 12 months. If the budget did not move toward the chosen bets, the strategy was not adopted.
Sources
- US Census Bureau, Large Firms With at Least 20 Employees Biggest AI Users (May 2026)
- NIST, AI Risk Management Framework
- GAO-25-107795, Information Technology: Agencies Need to Plan for Modernizing Critical Decades-Old Legacy Systems (July 2025)
- Consulting statistics: pricing models and fees (updated 2025)
Written by Stratrix editors from public sources and checked claim by claim by a second AI model. Firms pay Stratrix when they accept an introduction; they do not pay to influence this guide, and it names none of them. How introductions work