2.7Management consulting and other professions

In previous sections, we have made several references to three trends: first, management consultants have been increasingly moving into new service areas, which may be emerging areas of management consulting, but also areas outside the management consulting field; second, other providers of professional and business services have tended to do more and more management consulting; and third, firms from different professions tend to work together more frequently than in the past. Professions no longer enjoy impenetrable borders and absolute protection against “intruders”. They are undergoing profound transformations, which are reshaping individual professions, shifting their borders and changing their status, relationships and methods of work.

Professional service infrastructure of the market economy

To function smoothly, the market economy needs a well-developed, reliable and effective infrastructure of professional services. Management consulting is one of them. The total infrastructure comprises many other services (figure 2.1), all of which serve the same private and public sector client base, including business firms, administrations, social organizations and individuals. They also serve each other.

The structural changes through which business and governments have passed in recent decades have had a major impact on professions providing services to them. The services of lawyers, accountants, investment bankers, management consultants and others are in great demand as the pace of structural changes accelerates and as these changes become radical and complex. Mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, privatization, structural adjustment, trade liberalization, export development, new forms of cross-border trade and financial operations, major development projects, business alliances, and new laws and agreements regulating business nationally and internationally – all are green pastures for businessand management-related professions.

Most of these business transactions and structural changes do not fall under the jurisdiction of one single profession. They involve legal, financial, accounting, organizational, managerial and other aspects, although one of these aspects