An Introduction to Management Consultancy
- Marc Baaij - Erasmus University Rotterdam, Netherlands
Whether you are looking to build on your management studies or experience of working in business, you are likely to have come across management consultancy and will need a clear and concise introduction to this area to help you understand its practices and techniques in order to hire and implement management consultancy in the future. This text provides you with these essentials for success in your studies and later industries when working with and not just for consultancy firms.
The text is built around learning objectives to empower your understanding of the 'what', 'how', 'when' and 'why' at macro and micro levels of management consultancy and its stakeholders, and provides you with engaging real life examples and extra web materials for study.
As well as full courses on management consultancy, this text will be invaluable to your management knowledge and skill-set across strategy, change, analytics, problem-solving, solution implementation and decision-making as applied by the world's top management consulting firms, such as McKinsey & Company, The Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company.
Lecturer’s resources
- Lecturer’s guide
- Teaching notes per chapter
- Answer guidance to end-of-chapter questions in book
- Suggested discussion questions
- Suggested small group assignments
- Suggested small group field project
- Lecture slides
- Option 1: provide all figures of the book on PowerPoint slides
- Option 2: create complete PowerPoint presentations for each chapter
- Exercises
- Exam questions
- Discussion forum
Student resources
- Templates for developing logical structures
- Web resources
- Consultancy publications
- Consultancy web site, career page
- Job application preparation services
- Consultancy institutions
Supplements
Lecturer’s resources
- Lecturer’s guide
- Teaching notes per chapter
- Answer guidance to end-of-chapter questions in book
- Suggested discussion questions
- Suggested small group assignments
- Suggested small group field project
- Lecture slides
- Option 1: provide all figures of the book on PowerPoint slides
- Option 2: create complete PowerPoint presentations for each chapter
- Exercises
- Exam questions
- Discussion forum.
Student resources
- Templates for developing logical structures
- Web resources
- Consultancy publications
- Consultancy web site, career page
- Job application preparation services
- Consultancy institutions.
'This book provides a crystal clear, strategic and up to date view of consulting that combines research and practice. It will be of equal value to consultants, their clients and anyone studying the industry or management innovation, at undergraduate or postgraduate level. It will be a leader in its field'
'An informative source that should be considered must reading for anyone interested in a thoughtful, easy to follow overview of the management consulting industry, from the normative pull of a true “helping” profession to the critical depiction of management consultants as little more than masters of rhetoric skilled at organizational sorcery. The volume contains myriad insights into consultancy’s micro- and macro-level dynamics, from individual consultants and their roles, responsibilities and expectations, to the competitive realities of consultancies and the knowledge management challenges of our post-industrial age, to the nature and nuances of consulting projects. The book is equally valuable for those interested in entering the consulting industry as well as managers who will be working with consultants.'
In this book, Baaij effectively captures the breadth of the field, from the normative pull of a true “helping” role to the critical depiction of management consultants as little more than masters of rhetoric skilled at organizational sorcery. The volume contains myriad insights into consultancy’s micro- and macro-level dynamics, from individual consultants and their roles, responsibilities and expectations, to the competitive realities of consultancies and the knowledge management challenges of our post-industrial age, to the nature and nuances of consulting projects. The book will be equally valuable for those interested in entering the consulting industry as well as new managers for whom working with consultants is a novel experience. Baaij is to be commended for providing sufficient insight into the dynamics underlying management consulting that readers will come away with a much richer understanding of this complex, ambiguous domain.
Gives a good perspective for understanding what is in a consultants job. Interesting approach and very applicable. Has been recommended for an elective in *consultancy- a broad approach'
The book covers all the aspects of management consultancy and provides a number of case studies along with suggested solutions for students to practise.
We have other modules that already cover data analysis and more technical skills. So in this module, we find this book highly relevant in a sense that it introduces the management consultancy at industry level, firm level, and at individual projects level with more focus on developing soft skills.
I added this book as one of the most imporant text books for the course "Planning and Managing of Consulting Projects"
Detailed and presenting several case studies. A very operational tool.
A quite interesting view of consulting and a good bridge between theory and practice. This book gives a brilliant overview on skills and strategy and provides methods for problem-solving.
Another excellent text but is a bit complex for students on the HND - more suited to further stages of a degree course or postgrad.
The book matched most of the syllabus for our course called Team and Consulting Skills and is adopted.
