Report
Growing our Next-Gen membership
Securing Established IMCs’ futuresICMCI Established IMCs 2019 Young
Consultants Survey

Outline1. Objectives of this initiative
2. Methodology and sample characteristics
3. Key insights and recommended next steps
4. Summary of detailed results

11. Objectives of this initiative
The objectives of the Established IMC Community (EIC) were identified to include:Sharing of best practices related to:o Realizing the ICMCI vision of becoming the voice of the management consulting
profession;o Recruiting / attracting members;o Creating value for the CMC designation and accredited consulting practices; ando Other IMC offerings.
Focus the resources of the member IMCs on mutually beneficial initiatives including but notlimited to:o Consulting readiness index and the working taskforce;o Increasing outreach to large firms in each IMC’s jurisdiction; ando Other initiatives to be identified in the future.

The first major really important membership-building initiative identified for the EIC at the last annual
meeting in Milan was to close a major information gap that is facing many IMCs:

Many IMCs are experiencing a drop in membership, and experiencing difficulty in attracting
new, younger members.
We must understand what the next generation of consultants want and need from a
professional body/community.
“Membership” as we practice it today is a concept of our parents and grandparents – over 50
years old. It needs reinvigoration and new relevance for consultants of the future who likely
belong to many virtual communities through social media platforms.

A survey tool to fill this information need was launched early this year with surveys conducted during
the summer and fall of 2019.

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2. Methodology and sample characteristics
This survey was undertaken by seven members of the Established Institutes Community (EIC)
including Austria, Canada, Japan, Netherlands, Thailand, United Kingdom and USA
Surveys were conducted during the summer of 2019 and were targeted at consultants under age 45
Survey components:
Demographic Qualifiers:Gender (M/F/other) – 3 tick/click boxes for easy completion and tabulation
Age (under 25, 26-35, 36-45) – 3 tick/click boxes for easy completion and tabulation
Country – not required if you are circulating the survey to consultants in only one country

Questions:

What attracted you to consulting as a career option?
What are the biggest challenges you face in your work as a consultant?
What are your main priorities in future development as a consultant?
If the consulting sector had a professional body/ consulting community, how could such anorganization help you and be valuable to you, in your career as a consultant?
Is there anything else you think a professional body/consulting community for the consulting
sector should focus on?

Sample characteristics
ICM
Austria
Canada# ofresponses< age 46
16MaleFemale

62.5%

37.5%

4776.6%

23.4%

Japan

2 < 3526 > 35

Netherlands

4564.4%

33.6%

Thailand

4265.8%

UnitedKingdom

17 (mostlyin-person)

UnitedStates
TotalsOther< 266 (13%)

2636-4535<45 (mostly 30-40)
33
8 (17%)(70%)< 35: 2 (7%) fromsample of 119> 35: 26 (93%)

1 (2%)

10(22%)

34 (76%)44.7%

4 (9.5%)9(21.5%)25(59.5%)

41.2%

58.8%

4(23.5%)11(64.7%)

2 (11.7%)580.0%

20.0%

1 (20%)

4 (80%)

200

111 (64.5%)

59 (34.3%)> 66(35.9%)> 73(39.7%)

4.4%

2 (1.2%)> 15(8.2%)>45

4 (9.5%)4 to 30(<16.3%)
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3. Key insights and recommended next steps
The key insights that were identified from summarizing the results from all seven EIC participants areshown below under each of the questions that were asked.
a. What attracts younger consultants to consulting as a career option?
 Independence, use of knowledge and skills to improve performance and sustainability ofclients
 Variety of projects, industry sectors, clients and issues
 Personal development and self-enlightenment Lack of other career choices
b. What are the biggest challenges younger consultants face?
 Having and keeping up with knowledge and tools to meet clients’ challenges
 Finding clients and gaining / maintain their trust / respect; avoiding youth and gender bias
 Dealing with aggressive workplace environments in firms
 Balancing all tasks and focus points
c. What are younger consultants’ main priorities for future development?
 Finding consulting peers and project partners
 Improving knowledge and technical skills including coaching, change management, futureissues, new insights, project management, brand building Futureproofing against economic downturns
d. How could a professional body/ consulting community help younger consultants and create value
for them?
 Networking events; not just to see and be seen, but to speak about special topics, fears andopportunities
 Speed dating for potential project partners
 Elevate the standards and credibility of consultants; differentiate between professionals andthose that just call themselves consultants; code of conduct Learning including new trends / tools, professional development, conferences, coaching andmentoring, online forums and regional meet-ups
 Sharing best practices and experiences; inter-collegial consultations
 Platforms for finding talented and relevant colleagues
e. What other things should a professional body/ consulting community focus on?
 Invite younger consultants to speak about their consulting approach and experiences Research key reasons why clients hire consultants
 Create partnerships with firms to stream new consultants into the CMC designation
 Spot future trends and share insights
 Member protection and benefit programs
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Recommended next steps
We recommend that, based on the key insights shown above, the Established IMC Community
consider the following factors when designing attraction and retention strategies for younger
consultants:
 Younger consultants value independence and variety – let’s feature those aspects of theconsulting profession when launching marketing targeted at that segment.
 Younger consultants face a common challenge to stay on top of the knowledge needed to staycompetitive (repeated as a main priority). Again, there is a market need here that ourorganizations should be able to address.
 Networking and credibility / reputation of the profession are consistently identified as ways inwhich the Institutes can help younger consultants.

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4. Summary of detailed results
The detailed responses for each question and for each of the participating EIC members are shown
below. Responses were combined and duplicates were removed as much as possible.
Question 1 – What attracted you to consulting as a career option?
Austria Self-fulfillment, self-realization
 The lack of opportunities to work at a company Method for authentic engagement for a sustainable world Various facilitation jobs that led to an entrepreneurial approach Increased income opportunities
 Independence, flexibility
Canada Breadth of knowledge required including problem-solving and the use of myanalytical and strategic skill-sets
 Adding value to businesses including seeing tangible changes in client
performance over a short time period; gratification of satisfied clients; andhelping businesses improve and maximize their potential
 Variety of projects, tasks; never the same day twice; breadth of experiences, andexposure to various industries; and diversity of clients and client needs
 Entrepreneurial environment; learning from clients; observing clients turn ideas
into businesses; and learning / helping clients do more with lessNetherlands
 Diversity: diversity in assignment, work in multiple organizations, diversity oftopics, several projects at the same time
 Making a difference: in public matters, improving the Netherlands, contributing tochange Personal and professional development: the challenge of working with different
organizations forces you to develop yourself, lots of opportunities to learn andgrow, incredibly fast learning curve Personal talent: my talent for it, expressing myself
 Freedom/independence: professional freedom, own clients, autonomy,independence Helping others: being able to help with wicked problem solving, helping different
organizations in realizing their objectives
Japan (based on Helpful to self-enlightenment
responses from Can enter various industries or enterprises with own consulting method / knowthe total
howmembership) Pleasure to support directly for clients’ management
 High salary
ThailandFreelance opportunity
A profession that uses knowledge and ability of one’s self
A profession that has a good income
A stable career
A respected profession
OtherProvide knowledge and experience for helping others to achieve better results
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than teaching A profession that needs to develop itself all the time
 A profession that can help and solve others’ problems
United Kingdom

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United States

Variety, diversity of work and of projects; it was the ability to work acrossorganizations, industries and specializations.
Saw consulting as a stepping stone to working in industry
Training and developing skills (both hard and soft consulting skills) and the speedof learning
Complete lack of career choices
Use of existing ability as ‘problem solvers’; how the consulting profession
embraces thisThe “way of thinking” and the “prestige” around the profession
Higher salary and the opportunity to work / travel overseas.
Natural progression to move from accountancy into consultancy or fromacademia undertaking an MBA into consultancy
Opportunity to meet lots of people
Good to be able to fast track skillsIndependence, learning, flexibility, no geographic link
Flexibility, Learning, industry diversity, no link to a geographical location, meetingpeople, travelling
A way to help more people innovatively.
Business, making a difference and variety of challenges
Independence and the ability to do what I do my way

Question 2 – What are the biggest challenges you face in your work as a consultant?
Austria
 Being able to have the knowledge and tools to meet clients’ challenges in aholistic manner Having an area of expertise but still having the skills to address other needs too Finding clients
 Gaining clients’ trust as a young female consultant
 Being paid for all the effort of the consulting jobCanada


Understanding and using the right methodology for a given problem
Learning the right questions to ask, knowing what to do at each moment
Keeping up-to-date with technology
Youth Bias including commanding respect in a room; bias against
recommendations from young consultants; and the constant need to secureinternal support for my client solution
Lack of research support
Aggressive internal workplace environment including workplace infighting forrecognition and advancement and “You are either moving up or moving out”
Responsiveness of the Client including resistance to change; resistance torecommendations; and keeping the client focused on transformation while day today problems arise
Breadth of Industries including needs are varied; always a steep learning curve;7and rapid pace of change – industry knowledge is out of date quickly
 Sourcing new projects and business development; a constant distraction; and RFP
process is arduous and often heartbreaking
Netherlands

Japan (based on
responses fromthe totalmembership)
Thailand

United Kingdom

 Being/keeping up to date: innovation, to be up to date on issues of the future,creating new forms of consultancy
 Work-life balance: long days, managing multiple deadlines, impact on personal life Personal/professional development: creating time for more in dept know how of
own working field, development of skills as a change agent
 Getting customer focus right: quality has a price, more integral approach fororganizational development
 Time versus quality: delivering in time with high quality, measure of quality,
spreadsheet management
 Acquisition/sales: acquisition development of myself, having enough clients andhow can I communicate the value of my services
 Effectiveness of advice: balancing between quality and acceptance of client Balancing all tasks/focus points: focus on more than one; combining assignments,
innovation and sales, lots of different clients and assignments, rapidly changing
environments
 Implementation/change processes: big change processes, getting things
implemented
 Need to provide consultation for un-specialized area Winning projects constantly
 Sometimes treated as “shady” business/no trust Low recognition of CMC in industries
 Getting trust from clients
 Continuous employment
 Being known in the target audience Have the opportunity to create value from knowledge, ability and experience tobenefit others Clearly understanding work with clients
 Get to know and learn others’ experience from different group of clients Brand building The need to be constantly changing, keeping pace, keeping ahead of clients to hit
the ground running in their area with the need to be knowledgeable of new
methodologies and technologies
 Meeting client expectations, agreeing with them and managing them throughout
the project life cycle
 Working across very different organizational cultures (i.e. consultancy and client)and how they needed to adapt to this Competing methodologies whilst working for a large consultancy and working on
client site and how this can lead to duplication of effort and reporting The challenge of maintaining high utilization rate and maintaining a work life
balance Communications, competition, ability to build a reputation, maintaining a pipeline
and lack of the right support whilst working
 Having the breadth as well as the depth, building a reputation and maintaining a8

pipeline of work
 Making new relationships
 Internal work in addition to client work
United States Acquiring business I am a current student not yet a full consultant
 Lead and customer development
 Steady flow of new business (the old 'if-you-are-delivering-you-are-not-marketingand-selling' problem)
Question 3 – What are your main priorities in future development as a consultant?
Austria Finding consulting-peers and project partners
 Finding and maintaining clients
 Maintaining work-life balance
Canada Become a more effective coach/mentor including integration of coaching andchange management approaches to better guide my clients throughtransformational journey Increase capabilities, knowledge, and technical skills including development ofsoft skills and long-term relationships; enhanced business modelling; andenhanced research skills
 Develop industry specific expertise Increased confidence with clients including accurately and quickly diagnosing
problems
 Too many to list: the challenge comes when being looked at as an expert in manyfields.
 The need to develop in many areas from finance to HRNetherlands
 Innovations: knowledge of future issues, keeping up with new insights
 Developing professional profile: learning on specific themes, growth in seniority
 Continual learning: keep learning – on the job and through education
 Leadership: learning to lead others in a friendly manner Research: doing research on the topics I want to advise on Specific knowledge or skills: learning to work systemically, learning new roles. Elearning Impact/added value: proving added value, keep growing in making impact
 Personal development: Do more of what I find fun, stay in contact with my trueand inner self
 Work-life balance: managing a work-life balance
Japan (based on Rebuild self consulting method/know-how/scheme catching up for the market
responses fromtrend and/or technology in a timely manner
the total
 Networkmembership)
Thailand Working process Selling skills
 Project management skills
 Client relationship management skills
 Expertise in consulting work Mindset
 Brand building9 Developing skills, including mediation, qualitative skill data analytics, businessanalysis, skills where there is a market need, sales and networking,communication skills
 Gaining more experience, building confidence, sharpening their brand as aconsultant, working in specific industries or areas
 Continue as is or try to find out where they fit in determining what their area ofspecialization is and take specific courses in that area
 Not being in control of his career Considering moving away from consulting including to future proof against any
downturn
 Building confidence and developing a specialism
 Clearer sense of direction
United States
 Continue to build and consolidate my intellectual property
 To become a consultant is the first goal
 I would like to be able to work at home but travel to different locations
 Business development and market growth To build a solo practice for change management in the process manufacturing(food, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, etc.) industries
Question 4 - If the consulting sector had a professional body/consulting community, how could
such an organization help you and be valuable to you, in your career as a consultant?
Austria Organize networking events where it’s not only about "see and be seen" but an
opportunity to speak about special topics, fears, opportunities
 Speed dating for project partners
 Giving an overview about the different support opportunities around financial
support and funding Peer groups, mentor programs
 ADR/mediation procedures
Canada Provide credibility for my profession / designation including validation of myexperience as a consultant; screening to ensure competence within theprofession; differentiation between professionals and those who simply callthemselves consultants; uniformity and credibility of the profession; andmaintenance of a code of professional conductUnited Kingdom

 Learning including keeping me up-to-date on new trends and tools; professionaldevelopment; conferences; coaching / mentorship training; career development
and advancement training; and teaching industry trends that I can pass on toclients
Netherlands

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Networking with peers; access / exposure to industry experts
Network: networking, meeting peers, connecting (on specific themes/cases)
The OOA way: the way the OOA does it
Quality standard/certificate: convincing potential customers what quality is andthat quality comes with a price, being a real quality ‘brand’Knowledge development: education programs, providing information about thelatest developments in the professional field
Inter-vision: sharing best practices, inter collegial consultation
Inspiration: low cost not traditional meetings with experts and colleagues
Skill development: trainings in sales and other consulting skills, treating current
10topics by means of workshops
 Hiring/finding talent: a platform which helps me to find talent and relevant people
 Can’t help: cannot, too much diversification, why should I need help?
Japan (based onresponses fromthe totalmembership)
Thailand See below. Answers for questions 4 and 5 were combined.

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A source of knowledge
A center for exchanging experiences
A center for developing professional skills
A recognized brandA well-known brandA center for finding various fields of consultants
A certified body to build credibility
United Kingdom
The two main areas that were strongest were networking and knowledge sharing
Networking suggestions were wide ranging from online forums and yearly
conferences to regional meet ups
 Other areas mentioned included codes of practice, career development,certification, qualifications, development of CPD courses/materials, discounts forsupplies, support with future pipeline, and job offerings
 Interested in case studies, industry knowledge and one participant highlighted theneed for impartial third-party advice
 Some of the participants in this group said ‘nothing’ The ones that did answer mentioned training and discussion forums as beneficial.
United States Networking, learning I would like to use it to learn consulting skills and networking, perhaps even gainthat first consulting job
 Educate business executives on the value of external services
Question 5 - Is there anything else you think a professional body/consulting community for theconsulting sector should focus on?
Austria invite (young) consultants to speak about their consulting approach
Canada Create a sustainable and high-quality mentorship program Address the ‘House of Lies’ stigma of the consulting profession
 Differentiation: Designation holders should have a higher level of credibility than a B4/MBB consultant without it Research the key reasons why clients hire management consultants, what factors
affect Implement an international qualifying exam
 Create partnerships with consulting firms to stream new consultants towards theirCMC
 Designation
Netherlands Future challenges/trends: spotting new trends and new research, technology
 Quality: developing standards/frameworks, developing professional guidelines,
recognized label
 Education/academy: an academy or other education
 Professionalism of profession: society has a negative view of. The role of11Japan (based onresponses fromthe total
membership)

Thailand

United Kingdom


United States

professional consultants, let people know consultants can make a difference
Protection of members: insurance and other measures to protect members
Network/ bring people together: connect people, bring people together
Development of skills: helping to improve my skills
Informal learning community: it should be a network or learning community, not a
top down organization for members
Improve recognition/visibility of CMC
Introduce the latest consulting method
Create a “market database” to be shared and updated
Set up opportunities for networking
Share best practices of other consultants
Hold events to obtain projects
Provide an educational seminar for young consultants
The main body for proposing consulting project to government sectors or largebusinesses
Provide employment services for consultants
Provide job opportunities for consultants
A good reputation
Career development
Value for money / clear benefits
Better marketing
Work life balance
Qualification on specialized areas in consulting
Salary Information
Social responsibility / role in community
Self-assessment
Specific training in specialized consulting
Diversity / inclusion
Ethical Standards
Under 25s were unaware of the professional body for consulting but were very
eager to find out more and provide suggestions on how that could work
Also keen to see the professional body providing a career pathway for theprofession
Promote the management consulting profession
Skills and networking should be the main focus
Protection from labor and tax laws that increase our costs or reduce our ability toserve enterprise customers
Marketing that sets the organization and its membership apart as a superior
solution to prospects and clients12