Management Consultancy 2.0

The field of Management Consultancy (MC) has been fast evolving into a specialization. For a very long time MC has been in vogue. It was known by different names. The Management Consultants were known as advisors, specialists, experts, productivity engineers, and so on. The common aspects of all these persons were the expertise they had in their subject and their individual ability/creativity to convert their expertise into implementable inputs for their clients. Increasingly the profession has become multi functional. Earlier the design and cost experts were two different persons. Today the client wants these two inputs properly dovetailed and

presented in an implementable format. So slowly the clients are becoming focused on the end result more than the product or process. Information technology was a separate specialization until recently. Today IT has become part and parcel of every assignment. Without IT intervention, no solution to the client can be comprehensive. Alternatively, implementation will not be possible without proper IT components. In the evolution of consultancy as a profession in the recent times, implementation has gained prime importance. The clients no more accept just a well presented report nicely bound. They need implementable reports along with implementation support if possible. This has emerged as a very important demand on the MC profession. The MC 2.0 hence has these key differentiators; multi-functionality, information technology and implementation focus. What does this mean to the profession of MC? MCs should equip themselves beyond their specialization. The IT has become ‘the’ enabler now across all the specialization; hence seeking the support of IT personnel even for basic things will not work and the MCs need to have a reasonably above working knowledge in various facets of consulting. Last but not the least is the implementation focus – this requires not just experience but also innovative approaches and understanding of real life situations. While the field of MC is continuously taking new shapes and avatars, certain things will never change – for instance the three basic ingredients of what makes a good MC – consulting, research and training. But shouldn’t these three ingredients be good enough to satisfy the needs of the profession? Yes – think of Research version 2.0 and Training version 2.0! Incidentally, it is predicted that these two areas are going to increase in volume in the near future.