Management Consultancy

What is management consultancy? How has it developed? How does it affect businesses? This book answers these questions and introduces the field for those looking to develop a career as a management consultant. Providing a thorough introduction to management consultancy, Morgen Witzel covers the topic from a range of perspectives including the field's historical development, the client's perspective, business analysis, return on investment, consulting failures, ethics and accountability and the growing importance of sustainability. With exercises and case studies throughout, this practical textbook provides students with a rounded and critical understanding of what it means to be a management consultant and in so doing, will help readers emerge as employable management consultants of the future.

‘I have never seen such a book about management consulting before: this sets a new standard. This book is extremely thorough and addresses all of the relevant topics.’ - Sander van ′t Noordende, Group Chief Executive Products Operating Group, Accenture Whether you are looking to build on your management studies or experience of working in business, you are likely to have come across management consultancy and will need a clear and concise introduction to this area to help you understand its practices and techniques in order to hire and implement management consultancy in the future. This text provides you with these essentials for success in your studies and later industries when working with and not just for consultancy firms. The text is built around learning objectives to empower your understanding of the ′what′, ′how′, ′when′ and ′why′ at macro and micro levels of management consultancy and its stakeholders, and provides you with engaging real life examples and extra web materials for study. As well as full courses on management consultancy, this text will be invaluable to your management knowledge and skill-set across strategy, change, analytics, problem-solving, solution implementation and decision-making as applied by the world′s top management consulting firms, such as McKinsey & Company, The Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company. Lecturer’s resources Lecturer’s guide Teaching notes per chapter Answer guidance to end-of-chapter questions in book Suggested discussion questions Suggested small group assignments Suggested small group field project Lecture slides Option 1: provide all figures of the book on PowerPoint slides Option 2: create complete PowerPoint presentations for each chapter Exercises Exam questions Discussion forum Student resources Templates for developing logical structures Web resources Consultancy publications Consultancy web site, career page Job application preparation services Consultancy institutions

'Management Consultancy' provides a comprehensive introduction to the consulting industry. The text begins with the presentation of a theoretical underpinning, before outlining how to carry out management consultancy and providing guidance on entering the industry.

The field of management consultancy research has grown rapidly in recent years. Fuelled by the drivers of complexity and uncertainty, a growing number of organizations – both profit and third sector alike – are looking at management consultancy to assist in their aims for development and change. Consultants have become a common feature in organizational change initiatives, involved in both providing advice and in implementing ideas and solutions. However, despite this growing recognition and influence, management consultancy is still often misunderstood or criticized for its lack of theoretical underpinning. The book seeks to address these issues by offering applied theoretical insights from academics that both teach and practice management consultancy. Written by recognized experts in their field, the contributors combine original insights with authoritative analysis. Uniquely, this book identifies emerging themes with critical discourse and provides rich empirical case study evidence to show the reader how management consultancy projects are implemented. Real-world international consultancy projects are featured as written up cases featuring organizations from multi-national corporations to the public sector. Written for graduate level managers or those who have practical leadership experience, this book will enable readers to apply management consultancy models beyond a classroom context

Guide for professional management consultants showing how to develop skills and attributes for client-centric consulting.

The volume is based on the presentations and discussions from the Fifth European Conference on Management Consulting sponsored by the Management Consulting Division of the Academy of Management, which took place June, 2011 at Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The conference theme – Exploring the Professional Identity of Management Consultants – attempted to capture the highly ambiguous social status of this young and emerging profession. Management consulting does not have professional standards or accreditation criteria like those found in medicine or law, there are low barriers to entry, and a broad range of tasks are undertaken in the name of consulting. As a result, a crucial aspect of what constitutes such a loosely defined profession is the identity of its members. The professional identity of management consultants is continuously developing through the interplay of how consultants are seen and valued by clients as well as in the larger society, and how consultancy firms and consultants identify and position themselves. This theme includes a variety of topics, ranging from the interaction between consultants and their clients, consultant rhetoric and self-presentation, and the plethora of books, media and public discourse on consulting, to human resource policies and practices, knowledge development activities of consultancy firms, career and life stories of consultants and consultancies, and consulting associations, accreditation bodies, and education programs. All of these factors contribute, either directly or indirectly, to identity construction in the field of management consulting.

The UK management consultancy market is predicted to grow by 8 per cent a year up to the year 2000. Growth is predicted at a similar pace in many countries. However, much is changing in this market and clients' needs are becoming more comple×. This te×t addresses trends and problems in this area.

""Management Consultancy"" is the definitive reference guide for all management consultants. It covers all aspects of the management consultants role and provides: guidelines on best practice, expert contributions. helpful case studies, and a complete overview of the industry. This title explores the principles behind the application of specialized management techniques to the consultancy process. It also seeks to promote an understanding of the dynamics of the client-consultant relationship. Comprehensive in its coverage and full of practical advice, techniques and useful information, it is of equal value to the MBA student, sole practitioner or professional in a large multi-national consultancy. This title is also the recommended reading for students on the MSc in Management Consultancy.