CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

            Management consulting according to the management consultancy wikipedia is the practice of helping organizations to improve their performance primarity through the analysis of exisiting organizational problems and development of plans for improivement organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants for a number of reasons including gaining external and presumably objective/advice and access to the consultants specialized experitise.

            The consultants aside from their profewssional expertise are exposed to many organizations and as a result of this exposure they are aware of industry “best practices”, although the transferability of such practice from one organization to another may be limited by specific nature of situations under consideration.

            Management consulting started as long as man, Jernem (1983) that, among early practioners of the profession, legends in management such as Tailor, Emerson, Gilberth and Ganth, management consulting received a fill up at their era through the works of luminaries such as Mckenzie and roethizberger and Elton mays of the famous Hawthone studies in the 1940. since this time to the present day, management, consulting has remained a consistently growing industry.

            To  day the relative modern professionals such as engineers, managers, instrument analysts etc, organize themselves in single units, called management cinsultant firms.

            Judging by the rate of growth of management consulting (1983) reported on possibility of more than 100,000 consulting in America today.

            In Nigeria today, though the exact figure relating to consulting is management consulting firms around 100 apart from these firms, there are about 1000 individuals offering consultancy service in their own personal capacity. this can be seen in seminars organized by management professional expert of different profletions. management consulting has long been recognized as a useful professional service that helps managers analyzed and solve practical problems faced by their organizations and to earn from the experience of other management and those managers continue influence the establity organization. also where this not viable, they advise the board of directors on the need to make use of external consultancy services or manages themselves at homes, they act as consultants by providing advice to pears and subordinates.

            consultances may also provide organizational change management assistance, development of coaching skills, process analysis, technology implementation, strategy development or operational improvement services. management consultants  often bring works to guide the identification of problems and to serve as the basis for recommendations for more effective or efficient ways of performing work tasks. the purpose of this research is to look at the impact of management consultances on the business sector in this research, emphasis will be on small scale business. this is justifiable not only because small enterprises provide a logical starting point for big business but and training ground for big businesses.

            small – scale business are vital parts of the economic and social life of any community. it is difficult to define exactly what a small-scale business is. the small industry development agenc y (SIDA) defines a small-scale process or services industry with a capital investment not exceeding N 150,000.000 in machinery and equipment alone. The united states small business administration (SBA) define small industry as one whose average number of employees range from 250 to 1500 people. In another definition  contained in the SBA, a small – scale business is one dominant in it”s field, they all share a common idea of the criteria which includes the number of employees, the sales volume, type of industry independent ownership and comparison with its past standard.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

            Management consulting has long gained prominence in many organizations where small or large. Due to importance and relevance of management consultancies,it becomes necessary to properly analyze its element procedure and deduct its efficiency.

In view of this impact of management consultancy, the researcher decided to research on those problems encountered by macon bread industry. one of the major problems encountered by macon bread industry is industry problems of sourcing capital to enable them procure machinery and raw materials for manufacturing of their product. poor management by inexperienced manages who do not understand and are unable to forecast the environment is one of the problems of macon bread.

            industry is undergoing.

The daily average output of macon bread is very low resulting in higher prices for their product. insufficiency of workers and the quality of their products are not comparable to the factory product because of lack of fund and government support.

1.3 RESEARCH QUESTION

•          What impact do management consultants consulting have in client organizations” business development?

•          How is business development defined; what are the central aspects of a business development?

•          In what ways can management consultant impact be approached or defined; what do we mean when we refer to impact of management consultants?

•          What are the central skills and competences of management consultasnts in busainess development?

1.4 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

            The aims of this study includes:

1.         The evaluation of the activities of management consultancies, on the development of the business in the area of organizational competence and excellence.

2.         This study will also reveal it management consultancies are truly “company doctors”, trouble shooter,” or “business healers” as claimed by some managers.

3.         It will also find out if the businesses are aware of the services of management consultancies and can afford it.

4.         Finally, the business can get the services if and when need at a reasonable cost.