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Consulting Competition
Bob Weinstein is a journalist who covers technology, project management, the workplace and career development.
It’s hard to find an industry that hasn’t been affected by offshoring/outsourcing. The consulting field has been hit particularly hard.
Consultants’ ranks include a mixed population of professionals that are made up of blue-blood consulting firms and a sprawling army of out-of-work professionals. The latter group glommed onto the field because they deemed it an easy way to earn money between full-time gigs. That might have been true a decade ago, but not any more.
The competition among consulting firms and independent consultants was always fierce, but the new twist is that American consultants are now also vying with offshore competitors. That’s the word from Tom Rodenhauser, head of Consulting Information Services, in Keene, N.H. Over the last two decades, he has earned a well-deserved reputation as the watchdog and critic of the consulting industry. He sees the multibillion-dollar industry for what it is: a melting pot of dash-and-flash, Ivy League, stuffed-shirt double-speak combined with hard-truth analytics delivered by seasoned professionals whose first priority is providing expert advice rather than capturing big fees.
In the paragraphs ahead, Rodenhauser gives us an inside look at today’s consulting world. Overall, “It’s metastasized into a Hydra-like beast of consultants, technicians, architects and plumbers,” he says candidly. “Consulting is no longer …
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