The US consulting market isn't short of established firms. Many have decades of experience, extensive client relationships and formidable reputations.

For a new entrant, those advantages can make the market look difficult to penetrate. Why would a client take a chance on a newcomer when there are so many familiar alternatives?

But established competitors don't have every advantage. They have existing ways of working, established positions and assumptions about what clients want. Those can create opportunities for a business prepared to approach the market differently.

The challenge was to find those opportunities.

We developed the strategy for launching a new consulting business in the US. Rather than trying to compete across the entire market, we focused on where the new business could establish a distinctive position and give clients a compelling reason to choose it.

That meant making some deliberate choices about which opportunities to pursue, how to position the business and where to concentrate its efforts.

A newcomer could not match the incumbents' reputations across the whole market, but it could become the obvious choice in one part of it.

Within 18 months, the business had captured significant market share.

The result demonstrated something important about entering established markets. Success doesn't necessarily depend on having the longest history, the biggest name or the broadest range of services.