Management consulting

Management consulting is the process of helping companies to improve or transform themselves. This may involve the identification and cross-fertilization of best practices, analytical techniques, change management and coaching skills, technology implementations, strategy development or even the simple advantage of an outsider's perspective. They generally bring formal frameworks or methodologies to identify problems or suggest more effective or efficient ways of performing business tasks.
Management consulting grew with the rise of Management as a unique profession. In the US, management consulting was often an outgrowth of the accounting profession. During the course of an audit, the accountant would find a business problem and propose the solution. During the latter half of the twentieth century as business problems and audits both became more complex, the large auditing firms segregated their audit and consulting arms into separate business units. Management consulting bloomed during the era of reengineering and ERP implementations. In the early twenty-first century, a series of accounting scandals and allegations of a loss of independence drove US regulators to insist on the formal separation of audit and consulting service providers. No longer could an auditor propose to fix a problem which he/she found.
 
Management consulting grew with the rise of management as a unique field of study. The first management consulting firm was Arthur D. Little, founded in 1886 by the MIT professor of the same name and was incorporated in 1909.[1] Though Arthur D. Little later became a general management consultancy, it originally specialized in technical research. Booz Allen Hamilton was founded by Edwin G. Booz, a graduate of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, in 1914 as a management consultancy and the first to serve both industry and government clients.

Today, despite their succes, management consultants attract their fair share of criticism.
 
The Institute of Management Consultants of India (IMCI), is the premier body of management consulting professionals and the only registered institute of established management consultancy firms and practicing individuals in the country.
IMCI was constituted in 1991 and was formerly known as Management Consultants' Association of India (MCAI). The MCAI was founded in 1963.
 
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