Ask HN: Is the future a future of large tech consultancies? or small ones?

I resigned recently from one of the largest tech consultancies on the planet. On day 1 I could tell I probably made a bad decision to work for them. I kept delaying the inevitable hoping I was in some isolated environment that was not indicative of how this company does business, and that somewhere within the conglomerate I could find a good opportunity to further my career goals. Fast forward 2 years later, unfortunately there was no real change and they turned out to be just as incompetent in every corner of the company that I had the opportunity to explore.

This technology company's internal practices are borderline criminal IMO. When given a choice they focus their efforts on changing a client's PERCEPTION of them rather than trying to fix real internal / systemic issues that prevent them from being a competent technology consultancy. They're so far from being what their clients think they are it's crazy to see how many (probably desperate) clients confide in them for their partnership.

Knowing what I know now I don't really think I could even label them a technology consultancy. They're a sales company who happen to do technology.

I'm thinking this SHOULD be a perfect business opportunity. When you lay out the options, you could have (1) an enormous company who is clearly collapsing under its own weight, or you could have (2) a small nimble company who is going to be a far more productive company but far more expensive than if you were to just hire them as an employee. IMO the decision couldn't be clearer. Though the small consultancy per-employee would likely be significantly more expensive they're going to deliver a far better product in substantially fewer man hours.

My goal here is to try to understand what "market forces" or "market perceptions" are at play here that have allowed this sort of madness to even exist let alone be the de-facto standard when it comes to technology consulting companies in the Fortune 500 world?