Hr Analysis of Consulting Sector

Created as part of project by:

Koyel Dutta

Ashwini Rao

Dev Maletia

Divij Sharma

Abhitosh Daw

of VGSoM, IIT Kharagpur

Headway into the world of Consulting:

Introduction:

The word Consultant comes from the Latin word “Consultare” which literally means to discuss. They are generally trained in specific fields and have a wide sphere of knowledge in a particular subject. Companies when faced with difficult situations regarding policies, organizational change, technology, market research, law, human resource or strategy can then easily turn towards the specialized Consultants for their expert advice.

Consultancy firms in essence are hired for a variety of purposes starting from something be as straightforward as researching a new market, as technically challenging as designing and coding a large manufacturing control system, as sensitive as providing outplacement services for the HR department, or as sophisticated as totally rethinking the client's organization and strategy. Their expertise in the chosen field not only makes them most suitable but also due to exposure to other clients and similar problems in the same industry aware of “best practices” as well as probable solutions.

The ultimate aim is to understand the root of the problem and provide solution that is both cost and time effective and performance enhancing.

The Management Consultancy industry has seen rapid growth and development since the 1980’s with more than 20% growth rates. And today this sector has expanded into multitude of branches like:

• Information technology consulting

• Human resource consulting

• Virtual management consulting

• Organizational Change management consulting

• Strategy Consulting

• Medical Consulting

• Financial Consulting

• Operations Consulting

• Sales and market research consulting

And so on.

It’s a huge field and the industry as per size, specialty and clientele and HR practices is broadly categorized as:

 The industry elite: These companies focus on providing cutting-edge strategy and operations advice to the top management of large corporations. They are the biggest and richest consulting firms of the world. Eg. Arthur D. Little, A.T. Kearney,