Corporate Consulting Groups

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Added to these approaches are corporations that set up their own internal consulting groups, hiring internal management consultants either from within the corporation, or from external firms whose employees have tired of the road warrior lifestyle. Corporations such as SunLife, IBM, Fidelity, Chevron Texaco, Metlife and Bristol Myer Squibb have found these groups to be particularly helpful. Many of these corporations have interal groups of as many as 25 to 30 full-time consultants.

The internal consultant approach is chosen for a variety of reasons: The corporation does not want to pay the large fees typically associated with external consulting firms. They want to keep certain corporate information private. Or they want a group that more closely works with, and monitors, consulting firm relationships. Often, the internal consultant has less ramp up time on a project due to familiarity with the corporation, and is able to guide a project through to implementation--as step that would be too costly if an external consultant was used.

Internal consulting groups are formed around number of practice areas: organizational development, process management, information technology, training and development to name a few of the more common practice areas. And, while there are positive cost and relationship benefits, there are potential problems. Often the internal consultant does not bring the objectivity to the consulting relationship that an external firm can provide. Many times, when the external consulting industry is strong, it is increasingly difficult to find the required high calibre of consultant provided by consulting firms. And, when financial times get tough, often the internal consulting group is the first to face layoffs. However, external consultants may pose more conflicts of interest and bias in favor of one client company over another especially in economies that are experiencing high degrees of consolidation resulting in industry and product overlap among client companies. And the difficulty that consulting firms face in making a distinction between competing client companies may unavoidable especially for client company projects that rely on intellectual property.

Source: Wikipedia[