Abstract
The rich and powerful have always needed advice on how better to manage their affairs and make effective decisions. Yet formal organisations that specialised in management advice didn't emerge until relatively late in the industrial age.
Defined by the Management Consultancies Association (MCA) in the UK as "...the creation of value for organisations, through the application of knowledge, techniques and assets, to improve business performance. This is achieved through the rendering of objective advice and/or the implementation of business solutions", the terms consultancy and consulting can actually refer to many different advisory disciplines, from architecture and engineering to management consulting or financial advisory, so that over 200 different types of consulting areas could be distinguished.
Management consulting, early on focusing on engineering and finance, gained a lot of weight from the turn of the 19th century. However, it was not until the 1930s that consulting firms actually began to grow their size.
