STRATEGIC CHANGE IN TOP MANAGEMENT CONSULTING: MARKET EVOLUTION AND CURRENT CHALLENGES IN A KNOWLEDGE-BASED PERSPECTIVE.

The paper outlines the evolution of the management consulting market from a knowledge perspective and sketches the challenges and necessary changes strategic consulting firms currently face. To this end, the paper delineates the different types of knowledge between consultants and clients as well as between different types of consulting services. In spite of their stable growth, traditional strategy and operation consultancies have lost business fields to firms that offer a different type of consulting knowledge, such as information-technology-oriented consultancies or, indeed, investment banks. The paper argues that in order for strategic consultancies to provide more than their traditional type of knowledge, they need to either discard their internal homogeneity or engage in network relations or strategic partnerships with other consulting firms.