Enterprise resource planning consulting boom (1990s-2000s)
When companies adopted SAP and Oracle enterprise resource planning systems, consulting firms built large practices implementing and tailoring software to each client's workflows. The software was powerful but generic; enterprises needed specialists to make it work.
Consulting practices grew into multi-billion-dollar businesses.
Established the pattern of specialized intermediaries between software vendors and enterprise customers.
EPAM is attempting the same role for AI — bridging generic frontier models and the specific workflows enterprises rely on every day.
