Advances in Consulting Research

Consulting is highly popular but a semantic consensus does not seem to exist—neither in theory nor in praxis. Even at a high level, the differences between the terms of e.g. consulting, business consulting, management consulting, and top management consulting are not always clear. This paper aims to characterize and connect various existing concepts in the consulting business. It can be interpreted as a discussion proposal and as a basis for a clearer understanding. For this purpose, the consultancy system is separated from the client system. Subsequently, the consultancy system with its roles, forms, structure and skills is presented. The last part describes the client system with its roles, types of requirements and characteristics. Links between the individual concepts are drawn.

In an assessment of the German research community some 10 years ago, we realized that there was virtually no institutionalization in research on consulting. As an immediate consequence of this unsatisfactory situation we decided, together with others, to lay the foundations of two institutions on Consulting Research with slightly different focus and degree of formalism. One of them is still operational, the other one not. In our contribution, we highlight these developments and discuss why it was a rocky road to reach the goal of a better institutionalization of Consulting Research in Germany, and what appears necessary to improve further on the current situation.

While their fundamental business model has not changed for many decades, consulting firms are currently faced with serious challenges putting the complete market at the risk of disruption. Given that situation, it is essential for consultancies to understand how value emerges in consulting projects in the eyes of their clients. Turning to the customer perspective, it is also important to understand how value emerges from the relationship with consultancies. While previous literature provides valuable but fragmented starting points to explain the joint value creation in IT consulting projects, we suggested a synthesized conceptual model drawing on the service-dominant logic in a previous article that integrates both the service provider and client perspectives. In this article, we now put forth a measurement instrument that we subjected to a preliminary empirical validation with which the important determinants in both spheres can be assessed to ultimately explain the value of the IT consulting service in a follow-up, large-scale quantitative-empirical validation.

The consulting business relies on trust between consultants and clients. In a situation where the client has not worked with a particular consultancy before, the positive reputation of this company can act as a substitute for previous personal experience. Vice versa, a negative reputation will be a substantial hindrance for a consulting firm in achieving sustained market success. Thus, creating and maintaining a good reputation is of significant importance for consulting providers. However, reputation is a somewhat cloudy concept that calls for a measurement instrument to determine precisely the status-quo for a given company. Moreover, as only things that can be measured can also be actively managed, measuring reputation is key to close the management circle on this important issue. The current paper presents an approach to measure and actively manage reputation in the domain of business consulting. The basic concept may be transferred to other knowledge-intensive service industries as well.

The study presented provides some empirical insights into two core fields of activity in IT consulting. For the selection and implementation of business software, results on the development and handling of procedural models are presented. Such models document the suggested practical steps in corresponding consulting projects. The use of procedure models is well established in consulting practice, at least among the 14 companies surveyed. Apart from some differences in the models’ operation due to pragmatic reasons, even small consulting firms behave in this respect in the same way as large consulting providers. Sequential procedure models are mainly used. An orientation towards reference models described in the literature actually takes place. However, such models are always adapted to the individual case of the client. This tailoring of the approach is considered very important for customer acceptance.

Business process related consulting accounts for a substantial part of the total consulting turnover. However, the positive results that are frequently associated with business process management can only be achieved through triggering of the process by its users and the correct execution by the process operators. Unfortunately, business scandals in various domains have shown that people sometimes do not execute their processes according to given standards or do not use existing processes at all. This failure in process execution can lead not only to suboptimal performance but also to life threatening disasters. By circumvention of official channels, individuals within the company create shadow organizations. Thus, unofficial processes and shadow IT systems emerge, which run alongside the official organization. This in turn has several disadvantages, among others increased complexity and lack of transparency, compliance risks and higher costs. It is, therefore, of crucial importance for clients and consultants alike to understand, why people accept or dismiss official business processes. This contribution proposes a theoretically as well as empirically founded model to explain why some processes are practiced, and others not. Thus, when designing or implementing process changes in the course of consulting projects, these results offer guidance and support for consultants as well as clients.

The age pyramid in Germany and gender aspects have recently led many industries to call for an increase in the proportion of women among their employees. However, IT consultancies still find it difficult to adequately exploit highly qualified womens’ potential when recruiting and bonding them. Our thesis is that deficits in the perceived work-life balance of the consultants are essential for this. On the basis of an empirical study, consisting of an online survey and subsequent telephone interviews with experts, the status of the topic of work-life balance in IT consulting firms is examined. This article focuses on the situation of female IT consultants and shows that the consulting industry can improve the work-life balance of female IT consultants through additional efforts and thus increase their attractiveness also for women starting their careers.

Systemic consultancy has gained in presence and influence in organizations in recent years. The theoretical foundations were developed in the 1980s, and the set of corresponding consulting instruments has since grown significantly on the architecture, design and tools levels. A concrete example illustrates the approach and procedure.

Based on the management innovation of “Open Management” the authors explore chances as well as risks in view of management consulting. It becomes evident that most companies cannot find their way to “Open Management” without external support. Prima vista, good times for consultants. A closer look reveals: What companies currently need is not provided by traditional consultants. And traditional consultants will not be able to support companies on their way to “Open Management”. There will be others who will rule this game…

Advancing and responding to the political guiding principles of sustainable development will require the engagement of all actors in society. Increasingly, private enterprises purchase consulting services to address sustainability challenges. To date, there has only been limited research to investigate the characteristics of these sustainability consulting services. Using website analysis and qualitative interviews with experts from the largest management consulting firms operating in Germany, this paper identifies the most prevalent sustainable development topics among sustainability consulting services. It also outlines their conceptions of sustainability and how consulting firms perceive their role as potential promotors of sustainable development.

The consulting market is in its notably first major turmoil since its inception approximately 100 years ago. Driven by technological and economic shifts leading to newly evolving needs and expectations and buying behaviors of clients the consulting market has to find its appropriate responses. This article looks at the way the current changes, often referred to as the area of Consulting 4.0, impact client demand, buying patterns and the collaboration between client organizations and consultants as well as the competitive dynamics on the supply side across incumbent traditional consulting firms (like the large strategy consultants, the Big Four and the system integrators) and the emerging start-up consulting service providers and innovative newcomers.

This research work investigates the development of interpersonal trust between the client and the consultant during the consulting process. It gives a conceptual outline of the trust building dimensions in the consultant-client relationship in terms of propensity to trust, perceived trustworthiness and the conditions of the trust situation with referring to the integrated trust model of Mayer, Davis and Schoorman. The research findings are enhanced by a qualitative practical investigation to provide a further context-specific concretization. Even though the implications from the practical investigation are in main parts congruent with the conceptual findings, it turned out that trust as a social mechanism is difficult to be grasped during practical interviews, why a conceptual foundation is indispensable to capture the total trust spectrum. This work shows that the trustworthy factors of abilities, integrity and benevolence are relevant for building interpersonal trust between the consultant and client, whereas a lack of ability-related trustworthiness cannot be compensated by the others. It is identified that signaling same-goal-orientation with the client and demonstrating a supportive role for the client’s interests are key factors for building trust by the consultant. It is also highlighted that a transparent working approach of the consultant is vital to reduce the client’s uncertainty and to promote trust building.

Consulting providers, which want to launch new products and services on the market, differing from the service spectrum they have provided so far, are confronted with two groups of problems. On the one hand, there are difficulties during the product development phase, because of insufficient own resources and competences. On the other hand, there are problems to win clients for these new products. Both aspects will be discussed in the following contribution. The focus though will be on the client-related problem. To explain this problem, established social psychological models will be used. This aims at a deeper understanding of the correlations and also gives practical design guidelines. We use an IT consulting company as an example. This company wants to market supplementary services in the fields of management consulting in the future.

Among many other industries, the digital transformation has also reached the consulting and IT services sector for some time. Not only client-side projects for the redesign of digital business models are carried out, but also consultancies face the challenge of rethinking their own business and delivery models in order to remain competitive. To determine the current status and future developments of the digital transformation in business consulting, an empirical study was conducted in the German market in summer 2017. A total of 233 usable answers were evaluated. This article summarizes the main results. Although there is an advance on an earlier study from end of 2015, low-virtualized consulting technologies are still predominantly used in a primarily supportive function. Highly virtualized consulting tools and tasks, such as complex analytical applications, cognitive systems and self-service consulting apps, despite their disruptive potential, remain marginal phenomenons up to now.

Information technologies, such as big data analytics, cloud computing, cyber physical systems, robotic process automation, and the internet of things, provide a sustainable impetus for the structural development of business sectors as well as the digitalization of markets, enterprises, and processes. Within the consulting industry, the proliferation of these technologies opened up the new segment of digital transformation, which focuses on setting up, controlling, and implementing projects for enterprises from a broad range of sectors. These recent developments raise the question, which requirements evolve for IT consultants as important success factors of those digital transformation projects. Therefore, this empirical contribution provides indications regarding the qualifications and competences necessary for IT consultants in the era of digital transformation from a labor market perspective. On the one hand, this knowledge base is interesting for the academic education of consultants, since it supports a market-oriented design of adequate training measures. On the other hand, insights into the competence requirements for consultants are considered relevant for skill and talent management processes in consulting practice. Assuming that consulting companies pursue a strategic human resource management approach, labor market information may also be useful to discover strategic behavioral patterns.

Consulting is becoming an increasingly attractive job for many IT graduates. The demand for innovative digital solutions without involving permanent IT staff is growing in enterprises. Even though the professional field of consultants has experienced strong growth in recent years, and this will not change in the foreseeable future, it is difficult to meet the demand for well-trained consultants. The two main reasons for this are the deficit in number of experts caused by demographic transformation, and the current generation Y with its particular expectations and wishes for work environment and working conditions. New demands of advancing digitalization are also placed on consultants: away from pure professional competence towards a holistic, goal-oriented and creative consulting. To meet the IT-demands of companies under these new conditions, the present solutions range from employing freelancers to outsourcing. This article presents another solution, which promises greater efficiency and meets the evolving requirements of the consulting industry simultaneously.

Owners of dental practices are entrepreneurs, but often lack comprehensive business knowledge. Thus, they often would need advice from a professional business consultant. However, given the revenue size of a common dental practice, fees for a professional management consulting project are simply not in financial reach for most dentists. By conducting a benchmarking study of a dental practice using an online platform, the dentist gains access to a proven consulting method and recognizes a clear and objective perspective on strengths and improvement potential for the practice. For the very first time, a professional benchmarking is available at an affordable base price. In addition, standardized consulting services can be booked on top for reasonable prices.

Digital transformation is occurring across all industries and leads to the presence of information technology (IT) in business processes, products/services and business models. Consulting companies are important enablers in this transformation and contribute knowledge on the (re)design of strategies, processes and systems. At the same time, this involves a change in consulting itself, since the classical distinction of consulting sectors is increasingly blurring. To compete in digital innovation, consulting companies require IT knowledge, in particular, in the domain of software. In view of a growing “softwarization“ of products and services, this chapter argues that consulting companies need to establish skills in efficiently providing software-based solutions. This represents an opportunity for traditional consulting companies, but also for traditional software companies to move towards consulting. Based on agile software engineering methodologies, this chapter conceives DevOps as a promising approach for linking customer requirements with software development and operation. A case study from the German IT company T-Systems Multimedia Solutions is used to formulate a more generic implementation model as well as experiences, which in turn contribute to enhancing the body of knowledge in the DevOps field.

Without professional advisors, taking financial risks is a challenging task for most private households (retail investors). Across countries, digital financial advisory services, in particularly robo-advisors, are becoming more popular in retail and private banking. These tools support their users in financial decision-making, like risk-measurement, portfolio selection, or rebalancing. Recent studies suggest that in the long-term, they could supplement human financial advisory. This work illustrates the key concepts of this (r)evolution, and discusses strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and risks of robo-advisory. The results suggest that robo-advisors have a huge potential to shape the future of the financial advisory industry, despite the fact that there is still a lot of potential yet to be exploited.