Generalist or specialist. Not surprisingly, specialists apply specialized process and functional knowledge to real organizations with real problems. It's great work that offers clear value to many organizations. Without doubt, the hottest area in consulting today is informational technology. And, its why the big IT consulting shops, like Andersen Consulting , will continue to experience meteoric growth.
More people work for Andersen today than do for the top five generalist firms combined.
Speaking of generalist, the other option available is to work for a firm which provides a wide variety of advice designed to make enterprises run faster, better, cheaper, meaner and more efficiently. At the same time, some of the Big Six accounting firms have made tremendous inroads into the strategy consulting business. Coopers and Lybrand , for example, has a very high quality strategic consulting unit and is managing to attract some of the very brightest students from institutions like NYU and Wharton . The most rapid growth is currently being seen in developing economies such as Brazil and Indonesia. View a more detailed discussion of consulting industry from Duke.