Guide to Becoming a Management Consultant

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Many organizations proactively seek the services of management consultants for their skills and expertise in solving their business problems. Creating value, improving processes, and offering insight and expertise, all in a short space of time make management consultants an integral part of today’s business ecosystem.

What has increased the demand for management consultants? The gig economy and the emergence of new technologies. These two factors have had a positive impact on the management consulting sector. While the gig economy actively encourages management consultants to work independently, newer technologies have created a thriving talent pool with entrepreneurial tendencies.

The perfect guide to becoming a management consultant means a first step — a complete understanding of their job role and, second, knowing the attributes and skills needed to be a good fit for the job. In absolute layman’s terms management consulting is simply problem solving through critical thinking. Management consultants must have both hard and soft skills to be a good fit for the job.

Job role

Today’s business environment is being hit more by the power of PESTLE. PESTLE is an acronym for the forces of ‘Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental’. In an ever-changing landscape, businesses need to evolve and grow. Enter a management consultant. Management Consultants work with businesses to improve their performance by providing expert advice to solve problems.

They scan the macro and micro-organizational environment to plan, strategize and deliver – solutions with agreed outcomes. The starting point will involve defining the problem, finding a set of alternative solutions, taking the most suitable one, hypothesizing the proposed solution, developing an action plan and assisting in implementing the same.

Work areas can cover a wide spectrum of businesses – trade, manufacturing and service industries. It can also be in different sectors like engineering, banking, software, technology, etc. In this consultation can be related to functions such as finance, operations, marketing, HR, and technology.

Eligibility Criteria

— There are no specific qualifications to become a management consultant, but an MBA qualification would be ideal.

— If you wish to take up consulting in a specialized sector such as IT, engineering or project management, then a qualification in these specialized areas is mandatory.

— Professional certification in management consulting from reputable institutions will be beneficial. There are many institutes and colleges offering short term programs in management consulting both in India and abroad. Furthermore, there are many online courses as well with competitive fee structures, which interested candidates can take advantage of.

Some of the commonly obtained certifications are Certified Management Consultant (CMC) provided by the Institute of Management Consultants USA (IMC USA) or Practicing Management Consultant (PMC) by Singapore Business & Advisors Council (SBACC).

— Internship with consulting company will be an added advantage

Required Skill Set

– Able to work under pressure and adhere to deadlines

— Must be able to work independently as well as in a team

— Must have strong interpersonal skills and good communication both oral and written

— Must be commercially smart

— Be aware of the current business environment, especially with regard to markets, trade and policy.

— Quantitative and analytical skills

— Must be able to conduct research and data collection as well as analyze and sort numbers.

— Must be proficient in Microsoft Excel, Word and PowerPoint

— Creative and out-of-the-box thinking

This is not an exhaustive list and candidates will need to add certain skills and qualifications depending on their field of consulting. Management consulting is a highly rewarding career in terms of job satisfaction and remuneration.

— Written by Srinivasan Balasubramanian, Dean, Thadomal Shahani . Management Center

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