First thing read seriously abt consulting :))

Management consulting….

One of the area I want to be in or pursue career is this…
Have started reading the same from wikipedia.

Following are the bullet points

1. Management consulting refers to the process of suggesting the plan of action to the perspective client with respect to the given business case at hand.
2. The first of management consulting firms is Arthur D Little firm formed by the person with same name. This firm mainly specialized in the technical domain like one of the work area for them was acetate.
3. Mckinsey is one of the most reputed consulting firms. It was formed by James O mckinsey. The main force attributed to the growth of mckinsey is Mr. Marwin Bower who is a law and MBA from Harvard school. He insisted on the professionalism and also on the high moral and ethics while providing business consulting. This company is more operated in the partnership mode where in the shareholders are involved in major decisions. In addition to this any director is chosen for the max term of 4 years. It also believes in the philosophy of “up or go” i.e. if u don’t perform than u are asked to leave the company.
4. The main thrust came to this area in 60s and 70s with the rise of likes of Boston consulting group and Harvard business school. Also at the same time accounting firms like Arthur Anderson and IT firms like IBM also opened the consulting arm.
5. The market size in 2004 was just under 125 billion dollars with a growth rate of 3% over previous year. This is a welcome change after the shrink years of 2001-2003. This industry grew at about 20% or so in 1980s.

There are basically three types of consulting firms

Large diversified groups like IBM, Accenture who provide consulting services in varied fields in addition to their core business
Large dedicated business consulting houses like Mckinsey, Boston group which are in general management consulting.
Small consulting companies which are mainly aiming for the niche consulting group like that of telecom etc.

Many a times consulting firms are blamed for proposing the approaches which are not practical to implement. Also they are sometimes blamed for not identifying the correct trend or suggesting faulty logic.

For timeline of history of consulting visit

http://www.careerselector.com/consulting/hist.htm

Regards
Mohit