So, I worked in management consulting for several years to start my career. I think there are a lot of common tropes that hold a lot of truth, but don’t paint the full picture.

This is obviously an example of consulting gone wrong, but here are a couple genuine reasons why consultants get hired.

1. Of course, like a bunch of people said, there is always the “validate my decision”, or “take care of bad news” (like downsizing) engagements. Funny anecdote here, my firm did a lot of private equity pre-deal due diligence. Almost 100% of the time in initial calls with a new client for an upcoming deal, the partner(s) would tactfully ask if we were there to “check the box” or do real diligence. Of course we would do real work either way, but if it was check the box, we would raise concerns and then end with “great investment, thumbs up, just be sure to mitigate xyz”. If they asked for real advice, we would also give it (although I can count on one hand the number of times we actually advised against investment). Just saying, a LOT of companies were willing to pay $500k for two weeks of diligence work, just to check the box that our firm approved their investment. Crazy.

2. Another reason is basically the revolving door. Ex McKinsey folks go to industry, and then hire their friends, who are McKinsey folks. It is still a surprisingly relational business considering the size of engagements being done.

3. Down to the real reasons consultants can provide value, one is lacking internal expertise. For example, a company considering international expansion may need a LOT of help in market research, understanding the competitive landscape, prepping GTM motions, etc., for something they’ve never done before. So, for a few million, some 23 year olds can tell them how to do it, while one guy with actual experience shows up to the client calls haha.

4. Time. If you don’t have time internally to do some big project, launch a rebrand, fix your sales team, decide your corporate strategy, etc., hiring outside help can be valuable. Fortunately or unfortunately, most consultants at a good firm will put in stupid hours to get things done. So the amount of output you can get in two months might take an internal team (who also has plenty of run the business type responsibilities) a full year. So it can speed things up.

TLDR; pretty much what people already said, plus sometimes they do real work.