Selection and Evaluation of Consultants

Client Professionalization: Proposed Approach for the Knowledge-Centered Management of Consulting Projects (S.121)

Sven Haferkamp, Sabine Drescher

Background

Due to the growing dissatisfaction with the services of management consulting firms, a new trend in the co-operation between client companies and management consulting firms has arisen: Clients are recognizing that they too have an important role to play in assuring the success of management consulting projects and are beginning to establish a higher degree of professionalism in their dealings with consulting firms.

From the standpoint of the client company, the purpose of this professionalization is to manage the consulting process in a holistic manner in all its phases, from the selection and evaluation of consultants to the transfer of knowledge gained in consulting projects to the company’s organization, so as to cooperate with consulting firms on an equal basis. In short, client companies are playing a much more active role in the consulting process. A special problem encountered in the holistic management of the consulting process relates to the peculiar nature of the knowledge gained from management consulting projects.

Firstly, the experiences gathered by the participants within and as a result of the project are very difficult to codify. Secondly, information concerning project results is generally considered to be highly confidential and therefore cannot be freely distributed within the company in a codified form. Consequently, traditional methods of knowledge distribution are inappropriate for managing this kind of knowledge and therefore new forms and possibilities of knowledge distribution must be identified and pointed out to advance the holistic management of consulting projects.

Against the backdrop of these trends, different companies have adopted different approaches in recent years to conceive and implement a more efficient, holistic process for managing consulting projects. Companies have in some cases employed knowledge management methods to systematically structure the knowledge flows, exploit synergies in consulting projects and thereby enhance the benefit of management consulting services. In order to identify suitable methods and instruments in this regard, an empirical study of seven companies in total was conducted in the time from May to July 2005.

The objective of the study was to examine the current status of client professionalization and identify concrete measures for the knowledge-centered management of consulting projects.

Knowledge transfer in management consulting projects

Before discussing the systematic management of knowledge gained from consulting projects as a critical resource, let us first define some key terms. In the following, the terms "management consulting" and "consulting" always refer to strategic management consulting, which purports to aid in the development, selection and implementation of solutions of strategic problems for the overall company or individual units of the company. Co-operation with management consulting firms generally occurs in the form of projects.

To ensure the successful execution of such projects, temporary teams consisting of employees of the consulting firm and the client company are assembled in advance. Practical experience has shown that the knowledge gained in the process of co-operation is often not communicated within the company. This failure must be attributed to an absence of structures and processes for the networking of key persons in possession of critical knowledge and for perpetuating this knowledge within the company.