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Management consultants typically don't have specialized expertise. They are generalists with good pedigrees, which makes them trustworthy in the eyes of their c

Management consultants typically don't have specialized expertise. They are generalists with good pedigrees, which makes them trustworthy in the eyes of their clients. Management consultants often get called in to vet risky projects management is considering. The idea is that if a trusted outsider OKed the project, and it fails, then management at least didn't act irresponsibly in undertaking it. There's a surprising amount of ass-covering in this world. The other scenario is when a decision needs to be made that will inevitably hurt someone in the company, so it's hard to find an impartial insider. This is why management consultants get pulled in for re-orgs, for example.

exelius 11y ago
It's not true that management consultants don't have specialized expertise. You start out that way when you join, but develop specialized expertise as you go through your career. I actually joined consulting from industry, so I was brought in specifically because of my knowledge of technology and development. You might be thinking of strategy consultants, which are a rapidly-disappearing subset of management consultants. They often deal with very high-level problems such as "our company's market position is disappearing; what adjacent markets can we move into?" You then get an answer that may not be the one you were looking for, such as "you should look to sell the company while your value is high". But this is often backed up with a dizzying amount of thorough analysis, so it's not just some random guy telling you something.