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Hi, my name is Frida Pemer.
I'm an assistant professor
at the Stockholm School
of Economics in Stockholm, Sweden.
I do research about
how organizations use
and purchase consulting services.
And in this talk,
we're going to talk
about how organizations organize
their purchasing of consultancy.
Now, this is an
activity that has become
increasingly common and
strategically important
in many organizations.
And large sums of money are
spent each year on consultancy.
However, purchasing
consultancy is often perceived
as very difficult and risky.
So in this talk, we
will have a look at how
private and public organizations
do to deal with these difficulties,
and how you organize the
purchasing of consultancy.
We're going to look closer
on the private sector
and the public sector.
But first, let's start
with the background.
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Over the last two decades,
the consulting industry
has grown very rapidly, and
organizations spend increasingly
large sums of money on consultancy.
One could even say
that use of consultants
has become part of everyday
life in many organizations,
both in the private
and the public sectors.
Now, why is that?
Well, a first explanation is
the rapid developments that
are taking place in society today.
On the one hand, we have
technological developments.
Rapid technological
developments have changed
communication patterns
in the entire value chain
from suppliers to customers.
It has also created new
markets, products, and services,
and new demands from customers.
We also have the
globalization trend,
which has increased
competition and also opened
up new markets for many companies.
And together, this has created
a need for new knowledge
in many organizations for how to
navigate in the new landscape,
and how to improve
their competitiveness.
The second explanation
is the lack of resources.
And this is part of the
outsourcing trend that
has taken place in the last decade.
Many organizations focus
today on core competencies,
and are rather slim.
And this means that they don't
have enough resources internally
to develop new knowledge.
So instead, they have to buy it
from external knowledge providers.
And here, consultants
play an important role
as knowledge brokers.
They're really good at
translating new knowledge
and transferring new knowledge
to a lot of organizations.
So as a result of
these developments,
being able to purchase
consultants in a good way
has become essential skill
in the organizations.
