e-Procurement: From Strategy to Implementation

New Responsibilities for Consultancies

It is interesting to reflect that only two years ago, many industry watchers and partners in the large consultancy firms were beginning to wonder where, as an industry, management consulting was going. Lay-offs, particularly in the weakening ERP sector, had already begun. The two key growth areas—complexity and knowledge management—had failed to produce the lengthy and lucrative projects found in the quickly evaporating ERP market, and there seemed nothing ahead except piecemeal systems upgrade work and minor business process improvement projects to sustain an industry bloated with thousands of young generalists and heads-down technical specialists. Then, to everyone’s relief and to many consultancies’ ...