You might ask yourself: Why do some of the world’s largest organizations pay millions for the advice of management consultants? What value do these consultants actually provide–and which areas of business do they specialize in? Despite being around for decades now, management consultants remain one of the most misunderstood careers. In this article, we’ll unpack the core responsibilities, methods, and impact of management consultants.
Management Consulting in a Nutshell
At its core, management consulting is about solving complex business problems. Companies large and small, governments, and even non-profits turn to consultants when they’re facing challenges that their internal teams either don’t have the resources, experience, or expertise to solve.
These problems are often high-stakes: entering a new market, navigating digital transformation, planning an acquisition, or even restructuring the entire organization. To help solve these problems in a reasonable timeframe, consultants are hired not only for their analytical horsepower but also for their ability to synthesize massive amounts of information quickly and deliver feasible, actionable recommendations.
The Consulting Engagement
A typical consulting project at McKinsey is known as an “engagement”, and it usually lasts between 9 weeks to a few months. Teams typically include a mix of junior consultants (business analysts or associates), engagement managers, and partners who specialize in a subject-matter or a certain industry.
Here’s what a project step-by-step generally involves:
1. Framing the Problem
The first step is defining what the client is trying to achieve. Is it cost savings? Market entry? Organizational transformation? The team works closely with relevant stakeholders to clarify the scope and determine success metrics. This usually involves deep discussions between the client and the engagement team to really get a clear picture of the problem/goal as it is one of the most critical aspects of the engagement.
2. Problem Break-Down and Hypothesis
Next, the team breaks down the problem into smaller, more solvable, and MECE chunks to develop hypotheses. Consultants are trained in frameworks such as profitability trees, issue trees, and cost decomposition to structure their thinking. For example, if a company is experiencing a drop in profits, the consultant might explore MECE hypotheses across areas such as pricing, sales volume, or operational inefficiencies and test these hypotheses with data.
3. Research and Data Collection
The team then gathers qualitative and quantitative data to test the hypotheses. This could include interviews with internal employees, customer surveys, market research, benchmarking, or analyzing operations processes and internal financials. Note that steps 2 and 3 are oftentimes interchangeable, i.e. collecting data first, and then developing a hypothesis, depending on the team and the nature of the problem.
4. Heaps of Discussions and Meetings with the Client
Ultimately, an engagement team’s success revolves around crafting solutions that are aligned to the client’s needs, capabilities, and long-term vision. Regular check-ins with the client help ensure everyone stays on the same page and that recommendations are feasible. In short, management consultants don’t just deliver solutions—they co-create them with the client.
5. Synthesis and Recommendations
Having done all the analyses and collaboration above, consultants then create presentations—yes, the famous “decks”—to share their findings. But these slides are far more than visuals; a single engagement can often produce hundreds of slides, each carefully crafted and filled with information necessary for the client’s success.
What Kind of Problems Do Consultants Solve?
Contrary to the stereotype, consultants don’t walk into a boardroom and tell the executive team how to run the company. Their work is more hands-on and varied than most people assume.
Here are some examples of the types of challenges consultants work on:
- Sustainability Strategy: Helping firms define climate action roadmap, including how to reach net-zero emissions and when to publicly commit to climate targets.
- Supply Chain Optimization: Evaluate operational inefficiencies in companies’ supply chain and design improvements to reduce costs and lead times.
- Post-Merger Integration: Companies who have acquired a competitor(s) need help integrating people, systems, and operations to avoid duplication and cultural clashes.
- Organizational Restructuring: Helping companies redesign their business unit structure to improve speed and accountability.
Each project requires a unique approach, but all rely on the same toolkit: structured problem-solving, data analysis, collaboration, and clear communication.
Consultants Don’t Have All the Answers—And That’s the Point
Perhaps the biggest misconception is that consultants are hired because they already know the answer. In reality, clients hire firms like McKinsey because of their process: the ability to structure ambiguous problems, bring clarity, and generate new, actionable insights.
Entry-level consultants don’t need to be experts in the industry on Day 1. What they bring is analytical rigor, fresh thinking, and the ability to ramp up fast. Over time, as more experience is gained, they will start to specialize in specific industries like finance, healthcare, energy, or consumer goods. All in all, building a career in management consulting is no walk in the park. But for many, the intellectual challenge is exactly what makes it rewarding.
