Management consulting refers to the art and professional practice of collaborating with businesses in search for solutions to organizational problems.  The fundamental objective is to enhance business performance by increasing operational efficiency and effectiveness through business improvement processes and revenue increases. Management consulting can encompass the overall enterprise—the leadership, management, and governance of the overall enterprise as well as any functional area such as product development, marketing, business strategy, supply chain, production, and quality control, etc. Management consultants typically work with top management teams to devise and execute solutions for clients—domestic or international. As a global industry focused on operational excellence and strategic pursuits, management consulting provides an outside perspective on problem-solving, best practices, and strategy to enable business to become more productive and improve their performance. Given its extensive scale and scope, management consulting can encompass many diverse industries and business needs although some management consultants and management consulting firms specialize in industries such as pharmaceuticals, financial services, health care, among others. Others focus their attention on hard skills such as science, technology (IT), engineering or mathematics.  Still others concentrate on soft skills including leadership, business strategy, creativity, design and innovation, and diversity and inclusion, among others.  Regardless of the industry or professional focus, management consulting emphasizes research, analysis, problem solving, and solutions implementation.  The rationale and justification for management consulting is predicated on the notion that many business enterprises prefer an outside perspective to strategic decision making and implementation and hence recruit and engage management consulting firms.  For many of these businesses, strategic decisions tend to allocate or commit millions, if not tens or hundreds, of millions of dollars of investments.  Hence, the engagement of management consultants to ensure that strategic decisions are not only sound in formulation, but execution is a small price to pay.  The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projects that job openings for management analysts may increase to 11 percent this decade. Of particular interest in the need for management consultants will be the health care and IT industries as the corresponding demand for cybersecurity needs continue to grow.

Management consultants provide advisory services to clients by identifying a business’ strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and threats (SWOT).  This is typically pursued through data collection, data analysis, identifying competitors, and interviewing internal staff, managers, and top management and executive team. Management consultants analyze their findings, make recommendations, and communicate the information to clients while at the same time aiding clients with the execution of strategy. Hence, management consultants need a diverse collection of hard, soft, and social skills:

• Problem-solving skills: Identify issues and take action to resolve them.
• Analytical skills: Review complex information, analyze data, identify key conclusions, and make recommendations. 
• Communication skills: Communicate effectively with individuals at all levels of an organization.
• Time-management skills: Manage tight deadlines, schedules, travel, and other project requirements. 
• Interpersonal skills: Collaborate effectively with a team of consultants and client representatives to develop the best solution and inspire an organization’s leaders to act.