What is management consulting? What are their pros and cons?

Management consulting is one of the most sought-after professions in the business world. This field seems glamorous on the surface because it involves working with top management, traveling by air, and solving intricate problems. Although these characteristics make management consulting appealing, not everyone suits this work line. Many applicants want to work for management consulting firms but don't know exactly what the job involves. Management consultants are among the world's most industrious professionals. They work under pressure and consistently meet deadlines and high expectations. So, this article provides some insights into the requirements for working in management consulting and how you can become a management consultant. Also, it offers some unbiased observations about management consulting's pros and cons.

What is Management Consulting?

Shortly, management consultants resolve organizations' large and complex issues. They are professional experts who provide solutions and strategies to improve an organization’s financial and operational capabilities. Management consultants' recommendations are supported by copious data and research.

Clients primarily hire management consultants as external parties who can provide objective analysis within the organization, including companies, government institutions, nonprofit organizations, and others. Organizations frequently lose the objectivity necessary to make the best strategic and operational decisions because they become too ingrained in their prejudices and viewpoints.

Sometimes, these organizations are confronted with problems that they have never dealt with before. Management consulting firms that have worked on related projects for other clients in similar situations can provide their knowledge and guidance in this field. For instance, cutting costs is a popular consulting project when a business expands too quickly and isn't running at its peak efficiency. A consulting firm can help the client by drawing on its experience working on cost-reduction projects for hundreds of businesses in different industries.

What Does a Management Consultant Do?

Management consultants work on five tasks, depending on how far along the project is.

1. Understanding the Objective

Understanding the client's needs is crucial to the consulting project's success. Consultants work extensively and closely with the client's management team to precisely define the objective. Also, many discussions take place regarding the resources needed by the consultants, such as financial data access and key employee interviews. Consultants typically start with a hypothesis about potential solutions and consider the appropriate data they will require to test their theories.

2. Data Collection and Research

Management consultants work so hard to collect relevant data to support their hypotheses. This may include reviewing the company's internal financial figures, hosting focus groups with third parties, reviewing industry research reports, conducting interviews with company employees, and more. All this work usually involves files with enormous volumes of unprocessed Excel data that must be arranged and comprehended.

3. Conducting Detailed Analysis

After obtaining the data, management consultants concentrate on revealing the information for which they are compensated.

Consultants typically organize the data in Excel and extract key information into charts and graphs in PowerPoint. These visual elements often help reveal potential solutions to the issue, which could take the case in many surprising new directions. Also, the consulting team has had many conversations about correctly interpreting the data.

4. Holding Meetings with Clients

The client and consultants have many meetings during the project. These meetings are not always with executives but often with individuals appointed by the client to coordinate with the consulting team (usually vice presidents, managers, and others). Most non-consultants are unaware that there shouldn't be any significant surprises for the client when the finished product is delivered to them. Consultants keep the responsible person updated every few days or weeks, providing feedback and guidance and relaying updates to senior officials.

5. Creating Presentations

PowerPoint and Excel are among the best tools for management consultants. Consultants work extensively to ensure perfect detail and create information-rich, easily understood presentations. A consultant's time is largely spent producing presentations that are constantly evaluated by the consulting team's senior members and the client team's junior members. These reviews lead to ongoing revisions until the presentation is ready to be delivered to the client's senior management team.

Management Consulting Career Pros

1. Amazing Learning Opportunities

Management consulting firms offer incredible educational opportunities for consultants at all levels. There are various reasons for this:

1.1 Working with the World's Largest Companies

Only large companies can afford consulting services because they are expensive. Working on large-scale projects provides a great opportunity to understand the challenges faced by major corporations and how to solve them.

2.1 Interacting with Senior Management

Management consultants typically work with key members of the client’s management teams. Discussing strategies with them and understanding their thought processes is invaluable, especially for junior consultants.

3.1 Learning from Smart and Enthusiastic Colleagues

Much of what you learn at a management consulting firm often comes from your peers. Consulting firms hire elite talent, and your coworkers are the ones you interact with most often.

2. Flexibility and Diversity

Management consulting firms offer a unique opportunity to learn from various people, problems, and industries.

1.2 Different Places and Employers

Management consultants are not restricted to any one manager or location because they operate on a project-by-project basis. This means that if you don’t have a good experience with a particular team or place, you won’t have to stay there long. Conversely, you can request to work with the same team again after a good experience.

2.2 A Wide Range of Objectives Across Multiple Projects

The more junior you are, the broader the range of projects you encounter. One project may focus on cutting costs, while the next may involve breaking into a new market. Experiencing a variety of projects leads to significant professional development.

3.2 Projects in Different Industries

Most management consultants are not specialists in their careers' early stages, meaning they are not limited to a specific industry. This means one project could be in healthcare while the next could be in oil. Each industry has its own unique features and lessons. There aren't many professions outside management consulting that offer the opportunity to work and learn about many different industries in the same job.

3. Amazing Job Opportunities

Your career will be much easier after leaving consulting if you include companies like McKinsey or Deloitte Consulting on your resume. Across all industries, employers highly seek management consultants. Graduates from consulting, particularly from large firms, frequently end up in executive roles. Although management consultants work extremely hard, they frequently claim that the knowledge they gain on the job and the skills they can apply to other roles make it worthwhile.

Management Consulting Career Cons

1. Lack of Tangible Results

Management consulting might not be the best option for you if you're searching for a position where your efforts produce significant and observable outcomes. Even if your team works for several months and provides amazing, undeniable advice, its implementation is left to the client. Management consultants rarely get to see their hard work results because they move on to the next project once one is completed.

2. High Pressure and Expectations

Your team and clients will be demanding in management consulting firms. The stakes are usually very high because you work with some of the largest companies in the world. This is a fast-paced field where long hours are required to meet ongoing deadlines. Sometimes, you may work the same hours as investment bankers, but you won't receive the same compensation. As a result, many management consultants experience occupational burnout and move on to other fields.

3. Lack of Creative Environment

Although there is a lot of critical thinking in management consulting, there isn't much creativity. Especially if you are a newcomer at the firm, most of the work involves gathering research and analyzing data. These tasks require little creativity compared to fields like product management and entrepreneurship. So, management consulting may not be the right fit for you if you are a truly creative person who wants to build products, services, or businesses.

Top Management Consulting Firms

Now that you understand what it takes to work in management consulting knowing which firms you should aim to work for is essential. The Big Three or MBB are the highly sought-after and esteemed firms worldwide. These terms stand for the three largest companies in the management consulting industry:

• McKinsey.
• Boston Consulting Group.
• Bain.

In Conclusion

Working in management consulting is highly rewarding, but it’s not for everyone. We have detailed the management consulting field along with its pros and cons. This article has all the information you need to pursue a consulting career if the management consultant's daily tasks intrigue you.