I will admit that “irrelevant” is a pretty strong word. But I think it is true. Positioning a professional services firm based on “what you do” as opposed to “what you know” is nuts.

This is particularly true today. Your ability to do things better than someone else based on a functional skill are over. A world-wide market has made access to “best in class” functional skills available to anyone.

The only meaningful way to be different is to know something different. Anything else is a crapshoot.