What is Management Consulting?

I work in management consulting, I usually get three kinds of reaction – confusion (What do you do?), well pleased (You must get to travel a lot and make a lot of money), “Meh!” or not impressed (You people are good for nothing except making bewitching PPTs).

So, the question is what do consultants exactly do to invoke such a variety of reactions?

The primary goal of any business is to maximize profits. Financially stable companies desire steady or more growth and the struggling companies intend to turn around their fortunes. The companies can achieve their goals by expansion or improving operational KPIs or both. This calls for a constant need of data driven decision making. Many companies still lack the market intelligence to fairly assess their own position. In many cases, there’s no sufficient expertise available within the organization to analyze the data sensibly. Moreover, the lack of common goal-oriented approach and inter-departmental barriers can hinder the decision making. Lastly, there aren’t enough resources available within the organization to be dedicated to such focus projects.

And that’s where the consultants come in:

1.  Consultants bring in market intelligence with the industry benchmarks to show the stakeholders where their organization stands and where they intend to be (This is the major cause of awe-inspiring moments).

2.  Consultants, being the external party, can operate without bias. After doing the interviews with the various functions of the company, consultants can chart out a plan to achieve the common goal – with all views considered.

3.  Consultants are qualified to create hypotheses and test them. This is what gets the engine running and as Aristotle said – “Well begun is half done”. Do consultants use client’s data to do that? YES. Do they make bewitching PPTs to present their findings? ABSOLUTELY. It means the consultants are qualified enough to analyze the data, spot the patterns / anomalies, and make recommendations. EXCEL and PPT are consultant’s bread and butter and they take pride in their skills.

4.  Yes, the consultants are paid to travel (from the most buzzing locations to the remotest of the villages where a plant is set-up). Although the trips are seldom enjoyable, the timely deliverables are always expected. Consulting professionals will wake up at 3 AM to catch a 6 AM flight for a 10 AM meeting, work the entire day, catch a flight back to hometown in the evening 7 PM, reach home by 10 PM (if there are no delays) and go to work the next day. They are efficiency monsters. They get done more in less time and save their client's time and money.

5. A consultant's main role is to act as a governance buffer and sell political capital to their clients. They help reinforce or provide reasonable justification to decision-makers within the company. This is the real product, management consultants are selling underneath

To summarize, consultants solve an organization’s strategic and/or operational problems in a structured manner using a data driven approach within a stipulated time to help it grow or stabilize.

So, whenever a business faces a problem that needs solving, we’ll be there to deliver!