Yeah... consultants really do bring a lot of value for things that are complex, infrequently performed step functions. Of which there are a lot within a company

Yeah... consultants really do bring a lot of value for things that are complex, infrequently performed step functions. Of which there are a lot within a company. But ultimately, when you’re talking complex software implementation, you need folks who understand both the business context and the tech context at a deep level. Those people tend to be consultants, either working independently or employed by a major firm (or more often recently, working independently and brought in by a major firm). The job you’re often doing here is switching between multiple business (HR, finance, IT, etc) and technology (application, network, cloud, service, etc) layers. You really DO need MBAs, about half of whom are former engineers with 5+ years of experience. This is complex work that takes nuance and soft skills. If companies could do it themselves, they wouldn’t hire us to come fix their broken Workday/Salesforce/whatever implementations. There are a ton of us too. My MBA program 7 years ago was teaching modern ML/AI (with profs from the school’s top-ranked CS dept) and DevOps. The MBA has become far more tech focused than it was in the past; I would expect modern coursework to include some intro to cryptography if not cryptocurrency.