Strategy consulting 2021
Table of content:
Week 1: Defining management consultancy & the management consulting Industry .................................... 3
Beaij chapter 1: Defining a management consultancy ........................................................................................ 3
Beaij chapter 2: Origin and development of management consultancy.............................................................. 5
Beaij chapter 5: The competitive landscape of the management consultancy industry ...................................... 6
Colonizing knowledge: Commodification as a dynamic of jurisdictional expansion in professional service
firms Roy Suddaby and Royston Greenwood .................................................................................................... 12
Video 2: What is management consulting? ....................................................................................................... 14
Video 3: The origins and development of management consulting ................................................................... 15
Video 4: Competition in the management consulting industry.......................................................................... 16
Video 5: Commodification and colonization of knowledge ............................................................................... 17
Week 2: Managing the consulting firm .............................................................................................................. 18
Baaij chapters 7: The value chain of the management consultancy firm .......................................................... 18
Baaij chapters 8: Managing the management consultancy firm ....................................................................... 21
Anand et al. Knowledge-based innovation: emergence and embedding of new practice areas in management
Consulting firm (2007) ...................................................................................................................................... 22
Maister (1982) Balancing the Professional service firm................................................................................... 23
Video 1: The Value Chain ................................................................................................................................. 24
Video 2: Managing the consulting firm - Organizational structure.................................................................. 25
Video 3: Managing the consulting firm – Economics ....................................................................................... 25
Video 4: Managing the consulting firm – Markets ............................................................................................ 26
Video 5: Managing the consulting firm - Balancing the consulting firm .......................................................... 27
Video 6: Knowledge-based innovation .............................................................................................................. 27
,Week 3: Structured problem diagnosis .............................................................................................................. 29
Baaij chapters 10: CLIENTS AND OTHER STAKEHOLDERS ....................................................................... 29
Baaij chapters 12: STRUCTURED PROBLEM DIAGNOSIS ........................................................................... 30
Collis and Rukstad (2008), Can You Say What Your Strategy Is? .................................................................... 32
Gunn and Williams (2007), Strategic tools: an empirical investigation into strategy in practice in the UK ... 32
Video 1: What is strategy? And the use of strategic tools ................................................................................. 33
Video 2: The consultant-client relationship ...................................................................................................... 33
Video 3: Structured problem diagnosis ............................................................................................................. 35
Week 4: Structured solution development and communications .................................................................... 36
Baaij chapters 13: Structured solution development ........................................................................................ 36
Baaij chapters 14: Structured communication .................................................................................................. 38
The Best Memo You’ll Ever Write, Holly Weeks ............................................................................................... 39
How to Write a Memo or Report, Monci J.Williams ......................................................................................... 40
Video 1: Hypothesis-based methods .................................................................................................................. 40
Video 2: Structured solution development......................................................................................................... 41
Video 3: Hypothesis testing: Break down the question for analysis ................................................................. 41
Video 4: Hypothesis testing: Prioritize and choose the analytical approach ................................................... 41
Video 5: Communication ................................................................................................................................... 42
Video 6: Appendices .......................................................................................................................................... 44
Week 5: Strategy Analysis Toolbox I ................................................................................................................. 45
The new leader’s guide to Diagnosing The business by Mark Gottfredson, Steve Schaubert, and Hernan
Saenz .................................................................................................................................................................. 45
The five competitive forces that shape competition, 2008, M. Porter ............................................................... 47
The resource-based theory of competitive advantage by Grant 1991 ............................................................... 48
Capitalizing on Capabilities by Norm Smallwood and Dave Ulrich, 2004 ...................................................... 48
Video 2: Determine focus and segments............................................................................................................ 50
Video 3: Analyze and match resources and capabilities with customer needs ................................................. 51
Video 4: Assess attractiveness of segments ....................................................................................................... 53
Week 6: Strategy Analysis Toolbox II ................................................................................................................ 54
Baaij chapter 15: structured implementation.................................................................................................... 54
Schoemaker 1995, Scenario Planning: A Tool for Strategic Thinking ............................................................. 57
Kaplan and Norton 2008, Mastering the Management System ......................................................................... 58
Higgins 2005, The Eight ‘S’s of successful strategy execution ......................................................................... 59
Video 1: Recap and now .................................................................................................................................... 61
Video 2: Dealing with uncertainty – scenarios ................................................................................................. 62
Video 3: Implementation ................................................................................................................................... 63
Video 4: Major shortcomings in implementation projects - part 1 ................................................................... 64
Video 5: Major shortcomings in implementation projects - part 2 ................................................................... 65
,Week 1: Defining management consultancy & the management
consulting Industry
Beaij chapter 1: Defining a management consultancy
Management consultants are professional helpers. They create value for their clients, mostly
managers of organizations, through providing independent advice. Management consultancy is
a service. Management consultancy is intangible.
The International Council of Management Consultants (ICMCI), a global professional
association of management consultants, defines management consultancy as: ‘Service provided
to business, public and other undertakings by an independent and qualified person or persons
in identifying and investigating problems concerned with policy, strategy, organization,
effectiveness, procedures and methods, recommending appropriate action and helping to
implement those recommendations’ (ICMCI, 2012).
Management consultancy is an advisory service by specially trained and qualified persons who
assist, in an objective and independent manner, the client organization to identify management
problems, analyze such problems, recommend solutions to these problems, and help, when
requested, in the implementation of solutions’ (Greiner and Metzger, 1983: 7).
Management consultancy is thus a form of situation-specific assistance provided by an
independent, external and professional intervention-expert who enables the management of a
client’s organization to take action in an over complex management situation’ (Hagenmeyer,
2007: 110).
Management consultancy is an independent professional advisory service assisting managers
and organizations to achieve organizational purpose and objectives by solving management and
business problems, identifying and seizing new opportunities, enhancing learning and
implementing changes’ (Kubr, 2002: 10).
Management consultancy is a knowledge-intensive service which independent business
professionals provide to managers of client organizations and consists of objective advice on
management’s decisions regarding the solutions to the client organization’s problems and
opportunities (narrow definition).
Management consultancy is a knowledge-intensive service which independent business
professionals provide to managers of client organizations and consists of objective advice on
management’s decisions regarding the solutions to the client organization’s problems and
opportunities (narrow definition), and may, in some cases, also consist of assistance with the
management’s tasks regarding the implementation of these solutions (broad definition).
, The management consultancy process consists of five sub-processes:
1. Identifying the problem (opportunity).
2. Diagnosing of the problem.
3. Developing one or more alternative solutions. 4. Making a decision.
5. Implementing the decision.
Main differences between internal and external management consultants:
