Business Management Consulting
Disciplines & Sectors
Introduction
Business management consulting is where the majority of consultants (by number) operate however, management consultants operate in many different domains and sectors.
Often, when people think about consultants, they have in mind business management consulting i.e. consultants operating in private sector businesses, mainly plc’s and large incorporated organizations that are operated for profit and are ultimately accountable to shareholders.
In addition, thousands of consultants operate exclusively in the public sector arena supporting central and local government clients in providing high quality and value for money public services.
Types of consultant
Consultants specialize in particular disciplines, often based on their professional training, experience and qualifications. For example finance transformation; shared services implementation; health and safety; human resource consulting; actuarial consulting.
Management Consulting - horizontals and verticals
One potentially useful way to interpret the structure of consulting offerings is to consider horizontals and verticals that relate consulting discipline to client type such as public sector or private sector.
Management Consulting - Horizontals & Verticals
|
Private Sector
|
Public Sector
|
|
|---|---|---|
Human Resource consulting
|
||
Shared Services consulting
|
||
Finance transformation consulting
|
||
Actuarial consulting
|
||
Health & Safety consulting |
Each sector can be further subdivided, for example we can breakdown just the private sector column and analyze by industry (Banking, Insurance etc…).
|
Banking
|
Ins'ce | Manufa-cturing |
Pharmac-eutical
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
Human Resource consulting
|
||||
Shared Services consulting
|
||||
Finance transformation consulting
|
||||
Actuarial consulting
|
||||
Health & Safety consulting |
It is quite common for consulting firms to be organized by reference to a matrix. Using the illustration in the table above, a consultant would operate in one or more of the boxes, for example, an expert in finance function transformation has a skill set that can be readily applied in multiple sectors, such as Banking, Insurance or Local Government entities. Similarly, Health & Safety has application in most industries and sectors.
Some management consulting firms will specialize and operate in only one niche area, for example human resource consulting or risk management consulting; other, typically larger firms, will offer a variety of complementary consulting services that straddle two or more different disciplines.
Conclusion
It would be wrong to assume that business management consulting is the most desirable domain in which to operate. Many factors influence the client base that a consultant will target and for management consultants the commercial potential of both public and private sector are very substantial.
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