Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants for a number of reasons, including gaining external advice and accessing consultants' specialized expertise regarding concerns that call for additional oversight.
A consultant is a professional who provides advice or services in an area of specialization. Consulting services generally fall under the domain of professional services, as contingent work.
Arthur D. Little is an international management consulting firm originally headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, founded in 1886 and formally incorporated in 1909 by Arthur Dehon Little, an MIT chemist who extended the applications of cellulose acetate, especially its use as artificial silk. Arthur D. Little pioneered the concept of contracted professional services. The company played key roles in the development of business strategy, operations research, the word processor, the first synthetic penicillin, LexisNexis, SABRE, and NASDAQ. Today the company is a multinational management consulting firm operating as a partnership.
IBM Consulting, rebranded in 2021 from IBM Global Business Services, is the professional services and consulting arm of IBM. It provides services to companies, global government organizations, non-profits and NGOs.
Marvin Bower was an American business theorist and management consultant associated with McKinsey & Company. Under Bower's leadership, McKinsey grew from a small engineering and accounting firm to a leader in the consulting industry. Bower, alongside Edwin G. Booz, is regarded one of the individuals most responsible for the rise of management consulting after World War II; he is considered by many to be the "father" of the modern consulting industry."
Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation is the parent of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., an American government and military contractor, specializing in intelligence. It is headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in Greater Washington, D.C., with 80 other offices around the globe. The company's stated core business is to provide consulting, analysis and engineering services to public and private sector organizations and nonprofits.
Kearney is an American global management consulting firm with offices in more than 40 countries worldwide. Kearney's predecessor firm was founded in Chicago by James O. McKinsey in 1926; he hired Andrew Thomas "Tom" Kearney as his first partner in 1929. After James McKinsey died in 1937, the Chicago office split into its own company, led by Tom Kearney and called McKinsey, A.T. Kearney, and Company. In 1947, it was renamed A.T. Kearney and Company.
CH2M, earlier CH2M Hill, was an engineering company that provided consulting, design, construction, and operations services for corporations and governments. The company was organized in Corvallis, Oregon, and headquartered at 9191 South Jamaica Street, Englewood, Colorado. In December 2017, the company was acquired by Jacobs Engineering Group.
Oliver Wyman is an American management consulting firm. Founded in New York City in 1984 by former Booz Allen Hamilton partners Alex Oliver and Bill Wyman, the firm has more than 60 offices in Europe, North America, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific employing over 5,000 professionals. The firm is part of the Oliver Wyman Group, a business unit of Marsh McLennan.
Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., doing business as Marsh McLennan, is a global professional services firm, headquartered in New York City with businesses in insurance brokerage, risk management, reinsurance services, talent management, investment advisory, and management consulting. Its four main operating companies are Marsh, Guy Carpenter, Mercer, and Oliver Wyman.
Mercer is an American consulting firm founded in 1945. It is one of the four operating subsidiaries of global professional services firm Marsh McLennan. Mercer is headquartered in New York City with offices in 43 countries and operations in 130 countries. The company primarily provides human resources and financial services consulting services to its clients.
Katzenbach Partners was a small American management consulting firm. In 2009 it became a part of the global management consulting firm Booz & Company.
Boston Consulting Group, Inc. (BCG) is an American global management consulting firm founded in 1963 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the Big Three along with McKinsey & Company and Bain & Company. Since 2021, the consultancy has been led by the German executive Christoph Schweizer.
Strategy& is the strategy consulting business unit of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one of the Big Four professional service firms.
Strategy+Business is a business magazine focusing on management and corporate strategy. Headquartered in New York, it is published by member firms of the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) network. Before the separation of Booz & Company from Booz Allen Hamilton in 2008, strategy+business was published by Booz Allen Hamilton as Strategy & Business since its launch in 1995. Full issues of strategy+business appear in print and digital form every quarter, and other original material is published daily on its website.
The Big Three or MBB is the name colloquially given to the three large strategy consulting firms. They are considered to be the most prestigious firms in the management consulting industry. In terms of employees, McKinsey & Company is the largest and leads by revenue. McKinsey is followed by Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company, respectively.
Heidrick & Struggles International Incorporated is an international executive search and management consulting company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The firm also has a consulting practice focused on leadership and shaping corporate culture.
West Monroe is a digital services firm headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. West Monroe provides traditional management consulting, creative and product engineering services to businesses across many industries, including consumer and industrial products, energy and utilities, financial services, healthcare, life sciences, private equity, retail, and software and high tech. West Monroe is consistently recognized as a best place to work and a top consulting firm. West Monroe’s tagline is "Don’t Do Digital. Be Digital."
The Arbeitskreis Börse is a non-profit organization located in Mannheim (Germany), focused on investment banking, capital markets, consulting and start-up companies within the financial technology sector. It is the oldest financial association led by students in Germany and with over 1,300 members among the largest student organizations in Germany. The Arbeitskreis Börse is dedicated to connect students interested in financial markets associated with worldwide banks and consulting firms. These include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, EQT AB and McKinsey It is organized first and foremost by students of the University of Mannheim but is receiving increasing support from students of other tertiary establishments in Mannheim.
