Moreover, even in the current market, there are some growth areas: security consulting is booming; consultancies that deal frequently with government offices may not be far behind.This edition of MBA Outlook looks at the challenges facing MBA students who want to become consultants.
Some read like an extended paragraph from a consultant's report (and, indeed, many consultancies encourage their stars to write books around a single idea and lots of examples from the clientele).
Most business schools expect their professors to get involved with some real-world consulting (although most also limit the amount of time they can spend on it to about 20%); the up-or-out principle adopted by most big consultancies generates a constant supply of middle-aged consultants ready to set up boutiques; and many senior executives like to do a spot of consulting after retiring.
Consultancies that did not exist a decade ago, such as Andersen Consulting and IBM Consulting, will continue to grow.
Eden McCallum, which was founded in London in 2000, can tap into a network of 500 freelance consultants in order to offer consulting services at a fraction of the cost of big consultancies like McKinsey.
Clients can bypass the big names and hire consultancies such as Eden McCallum, a British firm that packages teams of experienced independent consultants, or Point B, an American firm that provides only a project manager, letting the client select the team.
Investment banks, magic circle law firms and international consultancies are permanent fixtures at Accra's plush hotels, where they are literally queuing up to tout for business.
Interviewed by Andrew Bolt on Channel Ten on Sunday, Joyce, the agriculture minister, said the decision was a "disgrace" and suggested academics had been influenced by a lucrative web of climate change consultancies.
Having set his sights on emulating Bill Clinton's success as a global statesman and cash cow, he has accrued a fortune of over £60m and over 200 employees across multiple consultancies and foundations.
SCO has caused enough uncertainty that technology consultancies, such as Gartner and Yankee Group, are advising clients to wait and see before adopting Linux.
And it is true that Britain, especially London, has been a hive of innovation in CSR since the mid-1990s, toanks to a creative cluster of think-tanks, NGOs, consultancies and inventive bosses.
