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0:00
Hello.
Welcome to this Henry Stewart
talk on management consultancy.
My name is Professor Daniel Muzio.
I'm a professor at the
University of Newcastle
and I'm an expert on
professional work,
including management consultancy.
And what I want to speak to
you over the next 30 minutes
or so is whether
management consultancy can
be considered a profession or not.
0:26
Management consultancy is
very much a success story
of the last 20 or 30 years or so.
It does enjoy the spectacular
growth along any economic indicator
that you can think of.
For instance, over the
last 20 years or so,
it has grown by an annual rate of
18%, from a turnover of $3 billion
in 1980 to $330 billion in
2008 just before the crisis.
If we look at the European context,
the management consultancy market
is worth 81 billion euro in 2007
and employs over 450,000 staff.
In the UK it has registered
a very marked growth
of 58% between 1995 and 2003, which
is when the last reliable figures
are available.
But for me, the most significant
indicator here is a different one.
It's looking at the ratio
of management consultants
to regular managers.
And whilst in 1965 we had one
management consultant for each 100
managers, so consultants
were quite rare, by 2005
we have one management
consultant for each 13 managers.
So the proportion of management
consultants to managers
has grown dramatically over
the last 40 years or so,
and it's not surprising.
If we look at our graduate students,
look at their preferred employers'
list, four of the top 10 choices
are management consultancy firms.
