Preface

'Management Consultant' was an unusual occupation when I started my career but nowadays consultancy is a commonplace activity. Many will see a spell as a consultant as an essential ingredient of a well-rounded CV, while others, like me, make a career of it.

There are two main drivers to the growth in consultancy:

1. the propensity of organizations increasingly to outsource more core activities, to which consultancy firms have responded with an expanding range of services;

2. organizations whose main business is not consultancy, which have sought revenue and/or competitive advantage by selling their know-how - that is, offering consultancy - perhaps evolving from an internal consultancy activity.

Consultancy involves skills in delivering services to clients and in running a consultancy business and this book addresses both these topics. Career progression in consultancy leads to commercial and business management responsibilities and these are therefore likely to be undertaken by more experienced consultants in larger practices, while sole practitioners need to consider them from the outset.

Latterly, internal support functions (such as HR and IT) have also been encouraged to take on consultancy roles. Line managers, too, increasingly need to introduce discontinuous change, demanding a measure of consultancy skills.

Whatever your role, I hope that you will find ideas and techniques in this book that will enable you to develop your performance and become a 'Top Consultant'.