Con Tricks: The Shadowy World of Management Consultancy and How to Make It Work for You
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Con Tricks: The Shadowy World of Management Consultancy and How to Make It Work for You
Martin AshfordSimon & Schuster£17.99
Keywords Clients, Consultants, Customer satisfaction
Perhaps surprisingly given the rather attention-grabbing title, this is a balanced, down-to-earth assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of management consultancy. Such consultancy has been a boom industry over the last 20 years initially as a result of the development of business and management schools and the theories emanating from them that had to be translated into practical working;and then as a result of downsizing and outsourcing, where specialist knowledge was squeezed out of organisations into the consultancies. One of the cornerstones of the book is a survey carried out on consultants and their clients which shows a lack of satisfaction with the client-consultant relationship on both sides. Many clients feel they have not had value for money from their consultancy fees, yet, seemingly perversely, these clients will and do employ consultants again, sometimes even the same consultants! The advice on making effective use of consultants is, unsurprisingly, common sense, but no less important for that. It is good to see the processes of setting the brief and managing the project (and the relationship) set down concisely and clearly.
