Management consulting industry

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Management consulting has grown rapidly, with growth rates of the industry exceeding 20% in the 1980s and 1990s. As a business service, consulting remains highly cyclical and linked to overall economic conditions. The consulting industry shrank during the 2001-2003 period, but had been experiencing slowly increasing growth since. In 2004, revenues were up 3% over the previous year, yielding a market size of just under $125 billion.

Currently, there are three main types of consulting firms. First, there are large, diversified organizations, such as IBM's Global Services that offer a range of services, including Information technology consulting, in addition to a management consulting practice. Second are the large management and strategic consulting specialists, that offer purely management consulting, but are not specialized in any specific industry, like the McKinsey & Company. Finally, there are boutique firms, often quite small, that have focused areas of consulting expertise in specific industries or technologies.

Source: WikiPedia