Behold the growth of management consulting: industry revenues worldwide grew from $3 billion in 1980 to $22 billion in 1990.1 Expenditures on such services by U.S. companies grew from about $7 billion five years ago to almost $14 billion in 1991.2 It is the rare Fortune “500” company that does not use management consultants. In some companies, annual fees to the leading consulting firm are $10 million per year or more — in a few, significantly more.
Yet the following complaints are common:
Consultants are always hawking the latest fad, but when they leave we never seem to be much closer to achieving our goals.
Consultants tell whoever hired them what they want to hear, effectively becoming a rubber stamp for management decisions.
Consultants spend a huge amount of time gathering internal information and then tell us what we already know.
Consultants send senior people to negotiate but the work is actually done by a flock of junior people with little business experience.
Consultants never want to leave and constantly try to expand the length and scope of their work.
Consultants make recommendations that none of us understands well enough to execute with the required commitment and judgment.
Consultants make recommendations that only they can implement, leaving the rest of us disenfranchised and ultimately unprepared to manage without them.
These problems are not inherent in the client-consultant... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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