There are a lot of "how to be a management consultant" tomes out there. This is not one of them. Rather, this edited volume on the advice business strives to illustrate, in an accessible way, the mindset of the modern-day consultant. What do consultants dwell on, and what do they need to know about trends in the business today, its recent past, and its probable future? Those are the questions that twenty-five contributors ranging from seasoned professionals to professors (and often both) set out to answer. The book is aimed at consultants (both fledgling and established) and people in business for themselves.
Chapters are divided into six major parts. There's a look at the consulting industry in overview; major practice areas (IT, marketing, etc.); consulting in different contexts (e.g., to boards or the public sector); implementation and change; managing the consulting firm; and the future of management consulting. The editors, Larry Greiner and Flemming Poulfelt, are both professors of management. Greiner is at the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, while Poulfelt is at Copenhagen Business School.
We'd be remiss not to mention two Harvard Business School contributions: the chapter on "High-Performance Consulting Firms" by Jay W. Lorsch, about how some firms survive and prosper while others—Arthur D. Little is one example—fall by the wayside; and "Information Technology Consulting" by Richard Nolan and Lawrence A. Bennigson.