美国管理咨询业的扫描.doc

SIC Code:NAICS Code: Management Consulting Services 8742-Management Consulting Services 541611-Administrative Management and GeneralManagement Consulting Services Management consultants provide administrative, strategic, and technical advice andtraining to organizations in the public and private sectors. Examples of these servicesinclude financial planning, organizational planning, marketing advice, informationtechnology consulting, human resource planning, and logistics advice. Certain industryfirms also provide management accounting and auditing services; see also Accounting,Auditing, and Bookkeeping Services for a discussion of these activities. Others specializein various forms of information technology planning and systems management, which isdiscussed in greater detail under the heading Information Technology Services.Background and DevelopmentThe origins of the industry can be traced back to time and motion studies performed inthe United States in the 1880s. Around that time Frank and Lillian Gilbreth improvedmethods for laying bricks by eliminating unnecessary steps or motions in thebricklaying process. Frank W. Taylor similarly increased productivity in the U.S. steelindustry by identifying and timing individual elements involved in various processes andthen pinpointing sources of inefficiency.In 1881 the first management consulting firm was established in Cambridge,Massachusetts, by Arthur D. Little. The firm, bearing the same name as the founder,quickly established itself as a viable business and maintained a leadership position in themanagement consulting industry for over 100 years. That same year saw theestablishment of the first U.S. collegiate business school, the Wharton School, alsolocated in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Nearly two decades later, in 1900, the firstgraduate school of business appeared, Dartmouth Amos Tuck School, followed by theHarvard Business School in 1908. The first European institute, Institute EuropeandAdministration (INSEAD), appeared in Fontainbleau, France, in 1959. Business schoolssupplied both qualified consultants and business research to the management consultingfield.During the first half of the twentieth century, a contingent of small consulting firms andenterprising individuals began to advise businesses in the United States and Europe,primarily on matters of industrial productivity. These early consultants developed newmethods for saving time and other resources and applied them universally acrossbusinesses and industries. Some of the better known firms that appeared during thisperiod include: U.S. firm Booz, Allen and Hamilton (1914); Belgian firm BuckConsultants (1917); Italian firm Orga SRL (1925); U.S. firm McKinsey and Company(1926); Swiss firm Gherzi Management Consultants (1929); Dutch firms Van de BuntManagement Consultants (1933) and B.W. Berenschot (1938); British firm PAConsulting (1943); and French firm Bossard (1956).The 1960s brought a number of significant events that accelerated and influenced thedevelopment of the management consulting industry. U.S. accounting firms begandiversifying into management consulting around this time. Within 10 years these firmscaptured significant shares of the U.S. management consulting market and began toexpand into international markets. Toward the end of the decade large consulting firmsalso began to diversify service lines and expanded into international markets. For themost part, global expansion involved establishing highly autonomous foreign officesstaffed by local consultants who understood local business environments.In 1963 Bruce Henderson founded the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in Cambridge,Massachusetts. The firm operated as the first pure strategy consulting firm anddeveloped several new management tools including the growth share matrix and theexperience curve. The tools were used in strategic planning to assess a companyscompetitive position or its individual business units. BCGs success had a number oflong-term ramifications for the industry. It catalyzed the development of a long string ofstrategy boutiques, many of which were founded by former BCG consultants. It alsodemonstrated how new management theories and business methodologies could earn afirm competitive advantage. Finally, its aggressive recruiting of MBAs drove up salariesfor entry-level management consultants.The 1980s were a period of tremendous growth, expansion, turbulence, and change.Thousands of business professionals laid off during massive downsizings in the majorU.S. industries joined the growing ranks of consultants. U.S. consulting industry revenuesdoubled between 1980 and 1985, and doubled again within two to three years.Meanwhile the European market was growing at a rate of 50 percent, fueled by demandfor information technology consulting and assistance with privatization efforts. Newmarkets began to open up around the world; small local firms and individual consultantsbegan to spring up in these new markets. With U.S. and European markets showing earlysigns of maturity, large consulting firms rushed to establish an early foothold in thepromising new markets. As a result the global market became larger and more integrated.Eastern Europe and Asia were the fastest-growing new markets in the 1990s. LargeJapanese corporations and Asian organizations emerged as major new clients, along withworld organizations and governments in eastern and central Europe. The breakup of theSoviet Union led to increased demand for political risk studies, industrial infrastructureanalyses, legal system assessments, and investment/market analysis in former Sovietnations. Ongoing development of Poland, Romania, and other transition economies ineastern Europe fueled the regions demand. As the dominant U.S. market continued tomature, most major firms concentrated resources on acquiring firms in these markets toestablish themselves in these potentially lucrative areas without facing the culturalbarriers involved in establishing new ventures.Bolstering explosive industry growth in the mid-to-late 1990s was the year 2000computer problem. Consultants were contracted en masse to help businesses reconfiguretheir computing environments to be compatible with four-digit dating systems. Thismassive, global project involved consultants in the fields of information technology,systems implementation, financial planning, and strategy. The management consulting industry also became increasingly polarized throughout thedecade. Large firms continued to grow larger by diversifying service lines to meetindustry-specific needs, recruiting heavily to meet skyrocketing demand, and snatchingup mid-sized firms and information technology suppliers. These industry leaders evolvedinto mega-service providers, or one-stop-shopping centers, in order to securelucrative contracts with multinational corporations whose needs were as broad as theirgeographic bases. On the other hand, small firms and individual practitioners, such asbusiness school professors and business technology experts, began entering the industryin record numbers. These niche practices typically focused on specific business concerns,such as operational strategies, and specific practices, such as electronic commerce.The late 1990s witnessed the emergence of complex contracts involving larger, moreintegrated teams of consultants and clients. The consulting activities of large firms shiftedfrom formulation toward implementation, as the role of management consultantsevolved from management advisor to management tool. With this growing emphasison implementation, especially in the area of information technology consulting, themanagement consulting industry became increasingly difficult to define. Services rangingfrom customized software development to the more traditional strategic planning advicewere bought and sold under the management consulting label. Important boundariesbetween management consulting, accounting, and computer/telecommunications fieldsbegan breaking down, and the leading firms in these three fields consolidated rapidly.Major industry mergers and acquisitions during this time period included the 1998marriage of Price Waterhouse and Coopers & Lybrand to form PricewaterhouseCoopers,a deal which reduced the Big Six accounting firms to the Big Five. Two years later Paris,France-based Cap Gemini Group bolstered its industry standing from eighth place to thirdplace by acquiring the consulting operations of Ernst & Young for US$11 billion. Also in2000 United Kingdom-based PA Consulting Group, Ltd. paid US$96 million for HaglerBailly, a U.S.-based consultancy. In September of that year, Hewlett-Packard attemptedto purchase the information technology consulting arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers;however, the US$17 billion stock deal fell through the following month due to unstableinformation technology market conditions.Industry snapshotThe management consulting industry is highly fragmented and polarized. Participantsvary widely in size, type, and specialization; the majority of firms are either extremelylarge or extremely small. Management consulting services range from generalmanagement advice to technology development to financial advising to strategyimplementation. The industry is also characterized by its broad scope and increasinglyblurred functional boundaries. Barriers to entry are low, it remains largely unregulated,and there are no certification requirements for becoming a management consultant.In the early 2000s, management consulting was an $80 billion enterprise within theUnited States and a $100 billion industry worldwide. Nothing has funneled more moneyinto the business world than information technology consulting, which boomed in the1990s as companies groped for ways to harness the benefits of office automation,network computing, and e-commerce. Other important consulting specialties includegeneral strategy, marketing and branding, leadership, logistics, human resources, andindustry-specific practices. All told, one standard reference on the industry lists 118distinct types of consulting services offered and 98 industries served.In many ways the industry has been propelled by what could be described as businessfads-philosophies, events, and practices that ignite intense interest for a few years butgradually fade. One such example was the rise of reengineering, a form of organizationalchange dictated by management strategy, of the early and mid-1990s. Later in the decade,however, corporate leaders set their gaze on challenges like e-commerce and employeesatisfaction, which was especially worrisome in the United States in the late 1990s whilelabor was in short supply.By the turn of the twenty-first century, the majority of management consultancies wereoffering Internet-related services to the hordes of businesses launching online ventures.Those who had resisted delving into the e-commerce arena were scrambling to make upfor lost time. When the technology industry in North America crashed, fueling a morewidespread economic malaise, management consultancies began to see their revenuesslow. As a result, the industry was characterized by both fee reductions and layoffs in theearly 2000s.Individual FirmsThe most common organizational structure for a management consulting firm is that of acorporation. A typical consulting firm might employ research associates at the lowerlevel, with consultants and senior consultants at the next level. Managing consultants arenext in the hierarchy. At this level, individuals typically have greater degrees of clientinteraction, as well as responsibility for the success of consulting projects. Finally, at thetop of a typical firms hierarchy are partners. In addition to running the operations of theorganization, partners are generally responsible for bringing new business into the firm.Management consulting firms usually operate in project teams. Depending upon the firm and assignment, consultants on project teams often spend more time at the site of theclients offices than they do at their own. There, they gather data and interact extensivelywith personnel from the client organization, make recommendations, and often work onimplementing solutions. Often, client personnel will work as part of the consulting teamfor the duration of the project to ensure that the organization has input into the process.Client participation increases the likelihood that the solutions will be implementedeffectively.Management consulting firms generally operate on a project fee or hourly fee basis. Feesin the consulting industry tend to run very high, due to the significance of the problemsthat consultants help their clients to overcome.Industry StructureManagement consulting firms range in size from sole practitioners to large businesses. Asfar as areas of expertise, some firms are devoted to specific practice areas while othersoffer a broad range of services to varied clientele. For example, a consulting firm mightspecialize in providing clients with compensation and benefits packages, to the exclusionof all other services. Yet other firms might provide a broad range of advisory services-combining such varied forms of advice as consulting the chief executive officer ongeneral business strategy and consulting a management information systems (MIS)executive on a new computer network. A major segment of the consulting market isoccupied by consulting organizations that are part of Certified Public Accountant (CPA)firms. Such firms attempt to serve their tax and audit clients with management consultingservices as well. Another type of consulting function is one that exists within a non-consulting organization. Such internal consultants provide specialized services for theircorporations. An example is an internal human resources consulting department within aFortune 500 corporation that serves the varied divisions of the organization as if theywere external clients.In addition to providing expertise or advice, many management consultants perform inthe role of process consultant. This approach recognizes that the client firm alreadypossesses knowledge of its own industry and internal corporate environment that exceedsthe knowledge available to the consultant. Therefore, the role of the managementconsultant is one of facilitating the process of pulling solutions out from within the clientorganization and providing insight with an objective point of view.Because the management consulting industry is unregulated, any individual or companythat offers advice in exchange for compensation may be classified as a consultant. Forthis reason, the definition of a management consulting firm often varies, depending uponthe source of information. Nonetheless, an understanding of the industry can beascertained by separating consulting firms into distinct categories and contrasting thecategories.The following breakdown describes the most common and most widely recognized typesof consulting organizations, first by organizational structure, and then by consultingspecialty (also known as practice area within the industry).Large Consulting FirmsThis classification represents the largest players in the management consulting industrywhose primary service is providing expertise and consultation to management. The broadheading of large consulting firms encompasses the larger of the generalist consultingfirms and strategy consulting firms.Big Five Accounting/Consulting FirmsA handful of large public accounting and consulting firms lead the industry on aninternational scale. These include the so-called Big Five: Andersen Worldwide,PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, Deloitte & Touche, and KPMG Peat Marwick.Consulting divisions of the Big Five are especially strong in information technology (IT)and management information systems (MIS) consulting. These firms typically offerstrategic or generalist management consulting services as well. As of the late 1990s,though, the marriage of public accounting, particularly auditing services, and consultingwas a troubled one; most of the top firms attempted to wall off their accounting andconsulting practices to avoid appearing to have conflicts of interest.Small Firms/BoutiquesSmall firms or boutiques often provide specialized services or offer expertise that focuseson one industry or a single business practice area. These firms tend to be small, lesser-known niche players that do not regularly compete directly with the larger consultingorganizations. Many of these firms operate in a single, geographic region. Some small orboutique firms service only one client.Sole PractitionersPerhaps the most difficult segment to define in the management consulting industry isthat of the sole practitioner. This group encompasses many outplaced or retiredexecutives and part-time consultants who offer expertise in areas where they have a greatdeal of experience. Sole practitioners are often engaged by smaller firms and even theirprevious employers. This classification of the consulting industry also includes universityprofessors who provide consulting in their areas of teaching expertise.Internal Consulting OrganizationsLarge corporations may have recurring project work for which the expertise of externalmanagement consultants would be required on an ongoing basis. Many such firms have developed internal consulting staffs in or