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Private company

Fast Five

Consulting firms

The "Fast Five" were a group of publicly traded consulting firms that developed in the mid 1990s to capitalize on the rapid commercial development of the Internet. The term "Fast Five" was coined to draw a contrast with the established "Big Five" accounting firms with2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

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The "Fast Five" were a group of publicly traded consulting firms that developed in the mid 1990s to capitalize on the rapid commercial development of the Internet.2

Products and brands

Business performance and rapid growth

The firms innovate both technology and methodology, developing new techniques better adapted for Web site design and construction, along with back-end internet infrastructure. For example, Viant created a service model to obtain maximum utilization of the three essential disciplines (creative, business strategists, and technical professionals/software developers).

Deliverables move forward based on team consensus, with input from all three disciplines. Prior to the service model, most professional services firms utilized a waterfall model of system development where results from one phase were thrown "over the wall" with limit input from the team that would handle the next phase.

Rapid business growth

The firms grew rapidly, often increasing their annual revenues and staff at over 100% per year.

From Wikipedia’s article on Fast Five (consulting), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Sources

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