Volume 1 (2018): Edition 2 (December 2018)

The Consulting Readiness Index (CRI) is an attempt to assess the stage of development of a country’s management consulting sector by the analysis of indicators shown to vary in proportion to national management consulting markets. This paper outlines the logic applied and includes the key data leading to creation of the CRI.

This research note introduces newly published research which sets out a basic framework for exploring and explaining national variations in the use of external management consulting. It is based on an extensive search of secondary sources on consulting and on differences in the use of management practices more generally. It concludes by setting up a research agenda and dialogue with practitioners to examine the use and non-use of external consulting empirically in different countries.

Gone are the days when management consultancy projects were arranged due to friendship and networks, based on relationships between a board member and a consultant. Management Consultancy firms have themselves diluted high-personalisation by adopting a policy of commoditisation and workforce leverage in their quest for optimising profitability. Clients have diluted the one-to-one nature of buying by professionalising purchasing practices. Consulting firms nonetheless invest in relationship managers in the belief they rely on these strong relationships for their future business. Using semi-structured interviews to collect data on buyers’ triggers, validation, decision-making and selection processes, the research presented in this paper explores the changes in purchasing practices and examines what they mean with regard to what clients see as successful relationships between consultants and their clients.

We review the concept of organisational resilience from the perspective of a consultant-client relationship. Specifically, we argue that the issue of a client’s resilience in the face of performance-diminishing disruptions needs to be a central theme of any consultant-client relationship. Management consultants have a responsibility to clients to support their resilience capabilities regardless of whether a given assignment explicitly uses the language of resilience. However, our literature review suggests this is a formidable challenge, particularly with larger and more complex client organisations. Understanding the client’s resilience landscape involves learning about the effectiveness of prior responses to disruptions at individual, organizational, and network levels. Advising the client on how to improve their resilience capabilities requires the consultant to think very carefully about the overall type of resilience needed, the reasons behind this stance, the level of implementation and the scope of implementation.

This paper looks into the implications for management consultancies who aren’t implementing effective digital marketing strategies as part of their own advertising campaign.