About Management Consulting

Consulting as a Career Option
Additional Resources

What is Management Consulting?

Management consulting is an independent professional advisory service assisting managers and organizations to achieve organizational purposes and objectives by solving management and business problems, identifying and seizing new opportunities, enhancing learning, and implementing changes.

Source: Management Consulting: A Guide to the Profession, 4th ed., Milan Kubr, ed., 2002, International Labour Organization.

What is a Management Consultant?

Professional management consultants are contracted by organizations to provide advisory services in an objective and independent manner.

Services include, but are not limited to, strategic planning, facilitation, quality assurance, education and training, investment counsel, identification and analysis of management problems, developing solutions, and the implementation of proposed solutions.

Duties

Professional management consultants may be asked to provide objective advice that will help an organization solve problems or manage change, including business start-up, expansion, reorganization, diversification, downsizing, disposal of assets, planning, review of operations, launching projects, or acquiring and implementing technology.

In general, business management consultants:

Define the nature and extent of the project by gathering information (which may include conducting research to determine the current efficiency and effectiveness of managerial policies and procedures.
Analyze the data collected and use their background knowledge to develop proposals for improving methods, systems and/or procedures.
Present their recommendations to the client organization and, if their recommendations are accepted, implement those recommendations.

Professional management consultants are hired when an organization lacks sufficient resources, requires external objective advice, or because they have expertise not available within the client organization. Most management consultants specialize in helping organizations solve particular types of problems, challenges or changes.

There are as many specializations as there are types of business problems and challenges. The following are a few possibilities:

Finance consultants provide advice on matters such as pricing securities, business valuation and economic forecasting.
Human resources consultants advise about recruitment practices, compensation and benefits packages, pension funding, workforce diversification and employee development programs.
Litigation consultants work with lawyers to develop case strategies, courtroom exhibits and tactics, and provide economic analyses.
Marketing consultants work with companies seeking innovative ways to market new or existing products and services.
Operations consultants help organizations increase productivity by improving business processes.
Organizational change consultants work with clients undergoing a fundamental re-orientation in the way the organization operates.
Quality management consultants help organizations improve the quality of their products and services.
Strategic consultants help organizations with strategic planning for the foreseeable future (which may include developing a growth strategy, restructuring, marketing internationally, buying/selling assets, or revitalizing leadership).
Technology consultants help organizations implement new technologies for optimal effectiveness.

Hiring a Management Consultant

For more on why to hire a Certified Management Consultant, please click here.

There are three simple but essential elements to successfully engaging a consultant:

Identify the need for management consulting services.
Carefully select a management consultant based on knowledge, demonstrated skills and competencies.
Work with the consultant to ensure that the assignment is satisfactorily completed in accordance with the proposal.

Identifying the Need

The first step in selecting a management consultant is to identify why you need one. Is there a problem you need to resolve, an opportunity you want to capitalize on? What needs to be accomplished to meet your goals? Once the need is established, you can begin the process of hiring the right consultant for the job.

Selecting the Consultant

The more carefully you select your consultant, the more likely you are to be pleased with the outcome of the engagement. Ensure that the consultant has experience dealing with your specific circumstances. Ask about relevant academic degrees that pertain to the tasks you want the consultant to perform. Ask for references from other clients and follow-up on them. In effect, when engaging a consultant you should perform the same due diligence as you would in hiring a permanent employee.

Management consultants typically submit a proposal describing their understanding of the client's needs, their approach, methodology, proposed deliverables, credentials and professional fees. Ask a short list of management consultants to submit a proposal for your review and arrange a meeting to discuss their submission.

Select a management consultant on the basis of:

Skills and competencies
Relevant industry experience
Adherence to ethics and standards
Availability
References
Professional fees and available budget

Consulting as a Career Option

Management consulting is a profession with its own objectives, methods, rules and organization. To individuals who join this profession, consulting is a career in which they may spend the main part of their working lives.

As for any profession, there is no one perfect model against which every entrant can be measured, but there are certain characteristics that affect the consultant's chance of success and personal job satisfaction. In management consulting, particular importance is attached to: analytical and problem-solving abilities; competence in the behavioural area; communicating and working with people; and helping others understand the need for change and how to implement it.

Qualities of a Consultant

Intellectual Ability

Ability to learn quickly and easily
Ability to observe, gather, select and evaluate facts
Good judgment
Inductive and deductive reasoning
Ability to synthesize and generalize
Creative imagination; original thinking

Ability to understand people and work with them

Respect for other people; tolerance
Ability to anticipate and evaluate human reactions
Easy human contacts
Ability to gain trust and respect
Courtesy and good manners

Ability to communicate, persuade and motivate

Ability to listen
Facility in oral and written communication
Ability to share knowledge, teach and train people
Ability to persuade and motivate

Intellectual and emotional maturity

Stability of behaviour and action
Independence in drawing unbiased conclusions
Ability to withstand pressures, and live with frustrations and uncertainties
Ability to act with poise, in a calm and objective manner
Self-control in all situations
Flexibility and adaptability to changed conditions

Personal drive and initiative

Right degree of self-confidence
Healthy ambition
Entrepreneurial spirit
Courage, initiative and perseverance in action

Ethics and integrity

Genuine desire to help others
Extreme honesty
Ability to recognize the limitations of one's competence
Ability to admit mistakes and learn from failure

Consultants, like other professionals, hold strong values concerning the conduct of their work. Since a consultant's most valuable asset is his or her reputation, successful consultants have a strong sense of ethics. Professional consulting associations such as CMC-Canada have developed codes of ethics for their members. Since consulting is currently unregulated, these codes offer some protection to the public. Most codes outline the consultant's responsibility to the client and the public. As a general rule, consultants are expected to place their client's interest ahead of their own.

Career Development

Education - A university degree (undergraduate, master's degree) is usually required. The relevance of the field of study to the particular field of consulting is considered and in some cases candidates must have a specific educational background. Consulting firms are equally interested in the performance of the candidate during their university studies, in particular project assignments during which the students have practiced fact-finding, communication and other consulting skills.

Practical Experience - Usually 5-10 years experience is needed, however, some firms have started recruiting directly from universities or business schools (i.e. MBA Programs). The idea is that talented and dynamic individuals will quickly acquire the necessary practical experience by working in teams with more senior consultants. The age at which candidates are recruited reflects the required education and experience. The lower age limit is usually between 25-30 years old.

Expertise - A consultant's expertise usually results from an in-depth knowledge of a particular industry, function, or technique. Consultants are either generalists or specialists.

Specialists: Provides in-depth, state-of-the art knowledge that is usually beyond the capability of most companies.

Generalists: Provides breadth of experience for a client. A generalist normally has advanced knowledge covering several industries or all major functions and applies this experience to the client's problems.

Employment in a Consulting Firm

Large Firms - If employed by a large consulting firm, consultants progress through four or five principal ranks during their career. In a smaller firm, there may be only two to three ranks.

First level - Junior consultant (trainee, research associate, analyst, entry-level consultant): Main task is to master the essential consulting skills as quickly as possible (for 6-12 months).

Second level - Operating consultant (associate, management consultant, consultant): The operating consultant is the front-line professional who does most of the consulting work at client organizations. Every operating consultant has a special field of competence, management function or special techniques.

Normally the consultant would undertake a number of operating assignments in varying situations, individually and as a team member, for a period of 3-5 years before being considered for promotion to the next level.

Third level - Supervising consultant (team leader, project manager, senior associate, senior consultant, manager): The main responsibilities of consultants promoted to this level include team leadership (e.g. in assignments requiring expertise in general management and involving several functional areas) and supervision of operating consultants.

Fourth level - Junior partner or equivalent (principal, manager, survey consultant): Consultants at this level carry out a number of marketing and management functions. Typically they spend most of their time in promotional work (visiting clients, doing management surveys, planning and negotiating new assignments).

Fifth level - Senior partner or equivalent (officer, director, partner, managing partner, vice-president, president): Senior and top management responsibilities prevail at this level, including strategy and policy direction. At this level consultants are concerned with practice development, do promotional work with important clients, and may be in charge of complex and major assignments.

An Independent Consultant's Career Path

Most individuals who start their own consulting business do so after having between 8-15 years practical business experience, or after having worked for several years in a consulting firm. Those who go directly into independent consulting without any previous experience usually set up in IT (information technology) or other special fields where technical knowledge is key and businesses are prepared to use technical experts without practical experience.

Many independent consultants get into situations where important career choices have to be faced. They could progress technically and take on more challenging assignments, but this may require giving up personal independence and agreeing to work in a team. One consultant may decide to expand the firm and employ other consultants. Another consultant may join a large consulting firm and employ other consultants.

Another consultant may join a large consulting firm if a senior position is offered, while a third may establish a network and cooperate with other small firms. A fourth will reject all these alternatives and look for assignments requiring special expertise and a great deal of experience, but small enough to be undertaken by an individual.

The consulting business offers enough opportunities to satisfy a wide range of different career aspirations.