Management consulting

Management consulting is the practice of helping organizations to improve their performance, operating primarily through the analysis of existing organizational problems and the development of plans for improvement. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants for a number of reasons, including gaining external (and presumably objective) advice and access to the consultants' specialized expertise.

As a result of their exposure to, and relationships with numerous organizations, consulting firms are typically aware of industry "best practices", although the specific nature of situations under consideration may limit the transferability of such practices from one organization to another.

Consultancies may also provide organizational change management assistance, development of coaching skills, process analysis, technology implementation, strategy development, or operational improvement services. Management consultants often bring their own proprietary methodologies or frameworks to guide the identification of problems and to serve as the basis for recommendations for more effective or efficient ways of performing work tasks.

History

Management consulting grew with the rise of management, as a unique field of study. The first management consulting firm was Arthur D. Little Inc., founded in 1886 as a partnership, and later incorporated in 1909.[1] Though Arthur D. Little later became a general management consultancy, it originally specialised in technical research.

As Arthur D. Little focused on technical research for the first few years, the first management consultancy was started by Frederick Winslow Taylor, who in 1893 opened an independent consulting practice in Philadelphia. His business card read "Consulting Engineer – Systematizing Shop Management and Manufacturing Costs a Specialty". By inventing Scientific Management, also known as Taylor's method, Frederick Winslow Taylor invented the first method of organizing work, spawning the careers of many more management consultants. One of Taylor's early collaborators, Morris Llewellyn Cooke, for example, opened his own management consultancy in 1905. Taylor's method was used worldwide until industry switched to a method invented by W. Edwards Deming.

The initial period of growth in the consulting industry was triggered by the Glass-Steagall Banking Act in the 1930s, and was driven by demand for advice on finance, strategy, and organization.[2] From the 1950s onwards consultancies not only expanded their activities considerably in the United States but also opened offices in Europe and later in Asia and South America. After World War II, a number of new management consulting firms formed, bringing a rigorous analytical approach to the study of management and strategy.

The industry experienced significant growth in the 1980s and 1990s, gaining considerable importance in relation to national gross domestic product. In 1980 there were only five consulting firms with more than 1,000 consultants worldwide, whereas by the 1990s there were more than thirty firms of this size.[3]

An earlier wave of growth in the early 1980s was driven by demand for strategy and organization consultancies. The wave of growth in the 1990s was driven by both strategy and information technology advice. In the second half of the 1980s the big accounting firms entered the IT consulting segment. The then Big Eight, now Big Four, accounting firms (PricewaterhouseCoopers; KPMG; Ernst & Young; Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu) had always offered advice in addition to their traditional services, but from the late 1980s onwards these activities became increasingly important in relation to the maturing market of accounting and auditing. By the mid-1990s these firms had outgrown those service providers focusing on corporate strategy and organization. While three of the Big Four legally divided the different service lines after the Enron scandals and the ensuing breakdown of Arthur Andersen, they are now back in the consulting business.

The industry stagnated in 2001 before recovering after 2003, with a current trend towards a clearer segmentation of management consulting firms. In recent years, management consulting firms actively recruit top graduates from Ivy League universities, Rhodes Scholars,[4] and students from top MBA programs.

In more recent times, traditional management consulting firms have had to face increasing challenges from disruptive online marketplaces that are aiming to cater to the increasing number of freelance management consulting professionals.[5]

Function

The functions of consulting services are commonly broken down into eight task categories.[6] Consultants can function as bridges for information and knowledge, and that external consultants can provide these bridging services more economically than client firms themselves.[7]

Marvin Bower, McKinsey's long-term director, has mentioned the benefits of a consultant's externality, that they have varied experience outside the client company.[8]

Consultants have specialised skills on tasks that would involve high internal coordination costs for clients, such as organization-wide changes or the implementation of information technology. In addition, because of economies of scale, their focus and experience in gathering information worldwide and across industries renders their information search less costly than for clients.

Approaches

In general, various approaches to consulting can be thought of as lying somewhere along a continuum, with an 'expert' or prescriptive approach at one end, and a facilitative approach at the other. In the expert approach, the consultant takes the role of expert, and provides expert advice or assistance to the client, with, compared to the facilitative approach, less input from, and fewer collaborations with the client(s). With a facilitative approach, the consultant focuses less on specific or technical expert knowledge, and more on the process of consultation itself. Because of this focus on process, a facilitative approach is also often referred to as 'process consulting,' with Edgar Schein being considered the best-known practitioner. The consulting firms listed above are closer toward the expert approach of this continuum.

Many consulting firms are organized in a structured matrix, where one 'axis' describes a business function or type of consulting: for example, strategy, operations, technology, executive leadership, process improvement, talent management, sales, etc. The second axis is an industry focus: for example, oil and gas, retail, automotive. Together, these form a matrix, with consultants occupying one or more 'cells' in the matrix. For example, one consultant may specialize in operations for the retail industry, and another may focus on process improvement in the downstream oil and gas industry.

Specialization

Management consulting refers generally to the provision of business services, but there are numerous specialties, such as information technology consulting, human resource consulting, virtual management consulting and others, many of which overlap, and most of which are offered by the larger diversified consultancies. So-called "boutique" consultancies, however, are smaller organizations focusing upon a few of such specialties.

The 1990s saw an increase in what has been termed a 'future-based' approach. This emphasised language and alignment of people within an organization to a common vision of the future of the organization, as set out in the book "Three Laws of Performance". The essential concept here was that the way people perform is seen to correlate to the way that world occurs for them, and that future-based language could alter the way the future actually occurs for them. These principles were increasingly employed in organizations that had experienced a market transition or a merger requiring the blending of two corporate cultures. However, towards the end of the 1990s the approach declined due to a perception that the concept outlined in this book did not in practice offer added value to organizations.

Current state of the industry

Management consulting has grown quickly, with growth rates of the industry exceeding 20% in the 1980s and 1990s ([9]) As a business service, consulting remains highly cyclical and linked to overall economic conditions. The consulting industry shrank during the 2001–2003 period, but grew steadily until the recent economic downturn in 2009. Since then the market has stabilized.

Increasingly, management consultancy firms are being challenged by disruptive technologies which facilitate work for ex-management consulting freelancers.

Trends

Rise of Big Four in the strategy consulting market

Big Four audit firms (Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, Ernst & Young) have been investing significantly into the strategy consulting market since 2010.[10] In 2012, Deloitte acquired Monitor Group — now Monitor Deloitte — while PwC acquired PRTM in 2011 and Booz & Company in 2013 — now Strategy&. From 2010 to 2013, several Big Four firms have tried to acquire Roland Berger.[11]

The future of the industry

In 2013, Harvard Business Review discussed the prevalent trend within the consulting industry to evolve.[12] With knowledge being democratized and information becoming more and more accessible to anyone, the role of management consultants is rapidly changing. Moreover, with more online platforms that connect business executives to relevant consultants, the role of the traditional 'firm' is being questioned.

Government consultants

The use of management consulting in governments is widespread in many countries but can be subject to misunderstandings and resultant controversy.

United States

In the US, Computer Sciences Corporation's Federal Consulting Practice, Accenture,[13] Booz Allen Hamilton, and Deloitte Consulting LLP, amongst others, have established a profile for consulting within government organizations and functions.

United Kingdom

In the UK, the use of external management consultants within government has sometimes been contentious due to perceptions of variable value for money. From 1997 to 2006, for instance, the UK government reportedly spent £20 billion on management consultants,[14] raising questions in the House of Commons as to the returns upon such investment[15]

The UK has also experimented with providing longer-term use of management consultancy techniques provided internally, particularly to the high-demand consultancy arenas of local government and the National Health Service; the Local Government Association's Improvement and Development Agency and the public health National Support Teams; both generated positive feedback at cost levels considered a fraction of what external commercial consultancy input would have incurred.

India

In India, NABARD Consultancy Services (NABCONS) provides consultancy services in the field of agriculture, rural development and management. It is the wholly owned subsidiary of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD)which is the apex bank of the country with regard to agriculture and rural development. NABARD is owned by Government of India and Reserve Bank of India. Agriculture Finance Corporation Limited provides consultancy mainly to governments and related institutions.

Europe

European Standard EN 16114:2011 "Management consultancy services" [16]

New Zealand

In New Zealand the government has historically had a greater role in providing some infrastructure and services than in some other countries. Contributing reasons included insufficient scale in the private sector, smaller capital markets and historic political support for government service provision. Current infrastructure investment plans are open to a range of public/private partnerships.[17] New Zealand governments hire in expertise to complement the advice of professional public servants. While management consultants contribute to policy and to strategy development, the Government tends to use management consultants for strategic review and for strategy execution. There is a distinction[18] between management consultants (who generally provide advice and fixed deliverables, often for a fixed fee) and professional contractors (who work for an hourly or daily rate providing specialist services). Official figures from 2007 to 2009 show annual expenditure of about NZ$150 to NZ$180 Million by the New Zealand Government on consultants, but this may be understated.[19] While multinational consultancy firms provide advice on major projects and in specialist areas, the majority of management consultants providing advice to the New Zealand government operate as sole practitioners or as members of small consultancy practices. The range of services provided is large, covering change management, strategic review, project and programme management, procurement, organizational design, etc.[20]

Criticism

Despite consistently growing revenues, management consultancy also consistently attracts a significant amount of criticism, both from clients as well as from management scholars.

Management consultants are sometimes criticized for overuse of buzzwords, reliance on and propagation of management fads, and a failure to develop plans that are executable by the client. A number of critical books about management consulting argue that the mismatch between management consulting advice and the ability of executives to actually create the change suggested results in substantial damages to existing businesses. In his book Flawed Advice and the Management Trap, Chris Argyris believes that much of the advice given today has real merit. However, a close examination shows that most advice given today contains gaps and inconsistencies that may prevent positive outcomes in the future.[21]

More disreputable consulting firms are sometimes accused of delivering empty promises, despite high fees, and charged with "stating the obvious" or lacking the experience upon which to base their advice. These consultants bring few innovations, instead offering generic and "prepackaged" strategies and plans that are irrelevant to the client’s particular issue. They may fail to prioritise their responsibilities, placing their own firm’s interests before those of the clients.[22]

Another concern is the promise of consulting firms to deliver on the sustainability of results. At the end of an engagement between the client and consulting firms, there is often an expectation that the consultants will audit the project results for a period of time to ensure that their efforts are sustainable. Although sustainability is promoted by some consulting firms, it is difficult to implement because of the disconnect between the client and consulting firms after the project closes.

Further criticisms include: disassembly of the business (by firing employees) in a drive to cut costs, only providing analysis reports, junior consultants charging senior rates, reselling similar reports to multiple clients as "custom work", lack of innovation, overbilling for days not worked, speed at the cost of quality, unresponsive large firms and lack of (small) client focus, lack of clarity of deliverables in contracts, not customizing specific research report criteria and secrecy.[23]

See also

Action areas of consulting

Related culture

References

  1. ↑ "Scatter Acorns That Oaks May Grow". MIT Institute Archives & Special Collections. Retrieved 9 March 2011.
  2. ↑ Kipping, M. 2002. "Trapped in their wave: the evolution of management consultancies," in T. Clark and R. Fincham (eds.). Critical Consulting: New Perspectives on the Management Advice Industry. Oxford: Blackwell, 28-49.
  3. ↑ Canback, S. 1998a. Transaction Cost Theory and Management Consulting: Why do Management Consultants Exist?, Working Paper 9810002. Henley Management College, Henley-on-Thames.
  4. ↑ Rhodes Scholars, Oxford, and the Creation of an American Elite – Thomas J. Schaeper, Kathleen Schaeper – Google Books. Books.google.co.uk. 2010-01-15. ISBN 978-0-85745-369-3. Retrieved 2013-06-14.
  5. ↑ "Consulting on the Cusp of Disruption". Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 2016-03-15.
  6. ↑ Turner, A. N. 1982. "Consulting is more than giving advice," Harvard Business Review 60/5: 120-9.
  7. ↑ Bessant, J., and H. Rush 1995. "Building bridges for innovation: the role of consultants in technology transfer," Research Policy 24: 97-114.
  8. ↑ Bower, M. 1982. The Will to Manage. New York: McGraw-Hill.
  9. ↑ O'Mahoney 2010[O'Mahoney, J. (2010) Management Consulting. Oxford University Press]
  10. ↑ "Consultancy firms: Strategic moves". The Economist. 2013-11-09. Retrieved 2015-05-07.
  11. ↑ "Limitless? Big Four strategic moves in consulting". Beaton Capital. 2014-04-14. Retrieved 2015-05-07.
  12. ↑ "Consulting on the Cusp of Disruption". Harvard Business Review. Retrieved 2016-03-02.
  13. ↑ "Accenture Federal Services".
  14. ↑ Consultants are costing us billions – and for what?
  15. ↑ "Central government's" (PDF). British House of Commons. Retrieved 2007-10-19.
  16. ↑ "EN16114 Management Consultancy Services Standard – Home". En16114.eu. Retrieved 2015-05-07.
  17. ↑ The 30 Year New Zealand Infrastructure Plan 2015, National Infrastructure Unit, The Treasury, New Zealand Government.
  18. ↑ Page 12, RFP All of Government Consultancy Services 28 October 2014 New Zealand Government
  19. ↑ para 16
  20. ↑ "Find a management consultant". IMCNZ. Retrieved 2015-05-07.
  21. ↑ Argyris, Chris. Flawed Advice and the Management Trap. New York: Oxford University Press, USA, 2000. Print.
  22. ↑ "Management Consulting'?".
  23. ↑ Johann Hari: The management consultancy scam

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