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.” However, the specific nature of situations under consideration may limit the ability to transfer 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.
Management consulting refers generally to the provision of business services, but there are numerous specialties such as strategic management, information technology consulting, human resource consulting, financial consulting, virtual management consulting, design, operations management consulting, engineering management, management science, 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 emphasized 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.