Training for Management Consulting

In industrialised countries, development is associated with the growth of consulting services. Developing countries have inadequate consulting services which are of uneven quality. In India demand for management consulting has grown and will continue to grow on account of competetion and changes in technology. It will increase sharply as business organisations
grow in size and the environment becomes competitive.

Improvement in the quality of consulting service in India will depend on conscious efforts to develop consulting as a profession. Stray efforts made in India for training of consultants provide few valid models. This chapter surveys briefly the requirements of training of consultants and examines some models that may merit serious consideration.

Consulting includes many different kinds of assignments. In the simplest form the client requires specialilst advice as in the case of a firm of solicitors or chartered accountants. Based on the knowledge of the subject and the case law, the consultant tenders advise to the client on his problem. At the other extreme a consultant is fully involved in a programme for overall change in the culture of an organisation, or what is often referred to as organisational development. In between there are many other kinds of consulting inputs that require application of certain technique of problem diagnosis and remedial action. Some examples of such assignments are
inventory or materials control, financial planning, production planning and industrial relations problems. The emphasis in such projects is generally on the consultant.s knowledge. The consultant has to however apply his knowledge as well as skills to initiate the process of attitude and interpersonal changes in projects that require organisational development or changes in strategic management. The effectiveness of the consultant in dealing with different kinds of problems require varying degrees of knowledge and skills.

Education & Training

Hence training for consulting will require many kinds of inputs. Subject knowledge is common to all consulting work. The knowledge may be acquired through academic study or practical work experience, or a combination of both. Theoretical knowledge is useful for the understanding of the problems from an overall perspective, while practical experience helps in identifying feasible solutions and implementation strategies. In India a combination of both is rarely available, and this lack remains a severe limitation in the development of effective consulting services in the country.

A survey of 48 countries by the International Labour Organisation (ILO)in 1971 showed that the industrially Developed countries have many more consultants than the developing countries. According to this survey the
industrialised countries had nearly 150 times more consultants than India. Even among the developing countries, some countries have been able to develop more consultants than others.

Training in the consulting process is the most difficult. It requires both knowledge and guided experience. Process is concerned with how certain things happen e.g. the chemistry of relationship and not its substance. The apprenticeship for training of consultants is as necessary as it is for some of the other established professions such as law, medicine and accounting. Incorporating apprenticeship for training of consultants has, however, many practical difficulties. Most important among these are the following:

Consulting is a special relationship between the consultant and the client, and one of trust between the two. Introducing a third party such as an apprentice to share the relationship is sometimes difficult, except when this is done on an institutional basis. Large consulting organisations can attach junior consultants to an experienced senior but single consultants can rarely do this. Even large consulting organisations have to include apprentices in the consulting team
judiciously so as to keep their extracosts down to the minimum.

Most consulting firms in India are small and managed by an individual, or a handful of professionals. The attachment of individuals for purpose of training is therefore difficult.

In a number of situations the apprentices are known to snatch away the clients of the consultant, and, therefore his business. An individual consultant is often reluctant to introduce a new promising apprentice to his client. At times clients are reluctant to share confidential data with a new
person.

Learning new skills from another by association is difficult.
Apprenticeship has to be for a long duration and must include several kinds of experiences; observation, analysis of the experience, practice under guidance. The apprentice and the consultant must have a relationship of mutual trust. The consultant will have to spend a fair amount of time to help the apprentice gain sufficient confidence in his own skills. A busy consultant will be reluctant to spare so much time on training unless it is an institutional requirement or he has special
interest in the individual or he is committed to the growth of the profession.

Income, even as a newcomer, is high. This being so, many persons do not feel the need for training or apprenticeship to develop knowledge and skills in consulting. The quality of consulting often suffers due to inadequate preparation for the job. Substandard service goes unsensored as a number of clients are not as discriminating about the quality of service as they are in a competitive situation.

Some Experiences of Training for Consulting

Japan has many large consulting organisations. Even in the 60.s, before Japan became a world commercial power, some of the consulting organisations employed 6/700 technical staff. The larger companies like Mitsubishi, Nissan and others employed large number of persons for inhouse consulting work. These consultants were concerned with efficiency improvement and helped organisations implement their recommendations. Japan did not have university-based management studies.

Large consulting organisations had, as did business corporations, regular training programmes in consulting. These programmes were specially designed to suit the requirements of their respective organisations. They also provided training to non-employees and thereby contributed towards the building of a pool of consultants in the country.

During the 1960.s, for example, Japanese Productivity Organisation,which offered consulting service, conducted evening courses in consulting for their own employees and others from business organisations who wanted to improve their capabilities. Being run by a consulting organisation, the
programme centred around practical problems. It was concerned with substantive problems of business and less with .why. e.g. the theory and concepts. This kind of training was adequate in Japan of the 60.s for yet another reason. Most organisations recognised that they had problems and they must solve them to improve their performance. They operated in a competitive product, cost and market situation and had to face a choice
between survival and extinction. The motivation to do well and improve their performance was induced by the market forces and the consultant was able to render help by diagnosing the problems and applying the techniques or methods which he learnt in the classroom. With experience the trainee became proficient in the application of what was taught in training programmes. In the Japanese situation of the 60.s, the technical knowledge
of the consultant was more important than process skills. In India organisations are rarely faced with the struggle for survival. Even improvement over the current level of performance is hardly a matter of dire necessity. The consulting proposals at times take several months to finalise partly because the management rarely have a sense of urgency in
resolving their problems. Unlike Japan, a consultant in India operates in an environment where his knowledge or intervention is seldom considered necessary for survival. The environment of consulting in India is very different from the Japanese. The process skills, therefore, become more important in the Indian context than they are in the Japanese.

Notwithstanding the differences between the industrial environment in the two countries, the development of consulting services and training to improve their quality is noteworthy. The training of a consultant emphasises identification of problems and gives him a kit of tools to solve them. The approach is pragmatic, and less concept-oriented.

Japanese organisations rely heavily on on-the-job training. The seniors guide the experience of the junior. The senior is expected to take interest in the training of his junior. This system has both advantages and disadvantages. It develops widely the skills to handle problems at all levels of the organisation. The system also develops a kind of stereotype and
repetitive styles of problem solving. While this system works well in a disciplined social environment as the Japanese, it is open to deeper study whether this arrangement can work as well in a laissez faire environment

in which rights and obligations on the part of both the employee and the manager are less clearly recognised. These considerations should be seriously examined for developing a programme of training for consulting in India. Large consulting organisations in the United States such as Arthur D Little, McKinsey and others have their own methods of providing apprenticeship to younger consultants. They employ theoretically trained persons and provide many opportunities to them to learn all aspects of the job. The junior members are attached to work with seniors, hold diagnostic discussions of projects or assignments and undertake work under the direction of the senior. The consultant has to make a presentation to his
selected colleagues for critical appraisal of his problem analysis, diagnosis, the strategy and the recommendation. The junior associate learns from this experience as well.

Consultants are encouraged to take some time away to take up research projects and to update their theoretical knowledge. Many consultants teach in some of the well known schools of management. Reputed consulting organisations in the USA recognise that formal programmes to develop consulting skills and the subject knowledge are necessary. Both Japan and
the USA, which have perhaps the most extensive consulting services in management, have consciously developed training of consultants.

There is difference between the management consulting training in Japan and the USA. Japanese industry was concerned primarily with the reconstruction of industry in the post World War II period and with increase in productivity, quality and cost of industrial output. The emphasis in consulting training was on problems connected with improvement in performance. Consulting training in the USA is broad based, as is management education. Large consulting organisations have closer links with university systems and research. Such links are being also developed in Japan due largely to the increasing complexity of the business environment.

In the last ten years or so, some of the schools of business in the USA have developed special courses in consulting skills. The typical courses consist of classroom study and project work. Students undertake a project and make a presentation of the report in class. Classroom study consists of theoretical
material and exercises to develop insights into the process of consulting. In Nigeria we had to take several steps to develop consulting services. A three-phase programme for practising consultants was organised. In phase I, the participants attended a three week course on theory and skills. In phase II, each participant worked on a project under guidance of the
instructors and, in the final phase, the participants came back for a classroom session to report, evaluate and review the experience. The organisers of the programme had considerable difficulty in arranging the project phase. In later programmes the project phase was dropped. Nigeria had developed a
number of large consulting organisations and professional associations which provided consulting training to their own employees. Besides, a number of qualified consultants came back to the country and set up their own consulting organisations. These developments were possible because consulting in that country was a very lucrative business. They had also allowed subsidiaries of large foreign consulting firms who could help
Nigerians acquire the needed experience in consulting. The manpower developed through these methods could later become the nucleus for consulting services in the country.

The supervised project experience in a course of study is time consuming and expensive. It is also very difficult to arrange apprenticeship on account of the reasons discussed earlier. Individual consultants find it difficult to leave their assignments to come for training as they lose their income during and immediately after the period of training. The concern for training will also increase when severe demand for quality of service is made by client organisations, and when consulting organisations become large.

In India consulting inputs were provided in the extension programmes held by National Institute of small Scale Industries Extension Training and others. The nature of the programmes has changed over the years. The project part of the programme is removed from the course.

The National Productivity Council conducts a programme in consulting. The duration of the programme is long and it hasn.t attracted too many persons who want to enter consulting as a profession. Management Consultant.s Association runs a correspondence course. The effectiveness of these has yet to be established.

The experience of training for consulting highlights three critical aspects of such training:

. Necessity of strong knowledge base in the subject of specialisation.
. Need of a package of consulting skills depending upon the nature of the project. Programmes that involve the total organisation need process skills i.e. understanding of why and how things happen, besides the diagnostic skills.
. Guided project work to gain better understanding of the situation and the consulting role.

The training for consulting will have to be broad based. Consulting training in India is likely to be closer to the USA model than the Japanese, as it is in management training. Large consulting organisations will be better placed to train their professional staff. Training facilities would, however, be needed for developing a wider base for consulting services. Broadly, three kinds of training will be necessary as follows:

. Consulting which requires application of quantitative subjects. This area will be concerned with production, inventory, and problems relating to efficiency and effectiveness.
. Consulting which requires functional areas of business.
. Consulting in the reorientation of enterprise such as organisational development, strategy planning and the like.

Apart from the knowledge of the subject, process, diagnostic and
consulting skills will have to be developed. The training for consulting will have to be based in university type institutions or jointly with consulting organisations. As apprenticeship is difficult and is an essential part of such
training, special teaching technology would be necessary to provide diagnostic experience and consulting skills. The programme that was tried in Nigeria presents one possible model. Project work should, however, be a part of the programme. The courses conducted in some of the universities in
the United States offer another model.

Plan of Action

The essential features of consulting training have been discussed earlier. The analysis suggests that both theoretical study and guided project work must be included in the programme of training. As practical training or supervised assignments are difficult to arrange, it is necessary to develop simulation exercises, or mock projects, or different kinds of problem situations. The development of teaching material would be
important and will require people who have both theoretical and practical experience to undertake this task.

Training effort will be needed at several levels; by consulting
organisations, teaching institutions and special agencies. Rarely has research and education been developed in India without direct support from government. The programme may have to be arranged jointly by government and employers association. Some important steps for arranging the training for consulting in India are the following:

Encourage large consulting organisations to undertake training for consulting. Many such organisations have paid little attention to training of their own staff. They might be given incentive for undertaking training for their own staff and outsiders.

A number of ministries and departments have set up their own advisory units. Ministry of Finance, Home Affairs, Industries have several captive units to provide consulting services to public organisations. They are well placed to initiate training both in theory and practice, provided they develop the material carefully. They would have to change their personnel policies in favour of retaining trained staff. The present practice of posting service personnel for short assignments is unlikely to develop the needed consulting skills in such units.

. Identify some institutions in management education and finance for development of training material and training programmes for consulting.
. Encourage teaching institutions to develop courses in consulting in
their curriculum.
. Offer scholarships to selected consultants for undergoing training, provided they offer to give practical training to some newcomers in
the field.