The Impact of Management Consultancies on Small Scale Business Development
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives Of The Study
The aims of this study includes:
- The evaluation of the activities of management consultancies, on the performances of small-scale business in the area of organizational competence performance and excellence.
- This study will also reveal it management consultancies are truly “company doctors”, trouble shooters” or “business healers” as claimed by some managers.
- It will also find out if small-scale businesses are aware of the services of management consultancies and can afford it.
- Finally, if small-scale business can get the services if and when need at a reason cost.
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
INTRODUCTION
Our focus in this chapter is to critically examine relevant literatures that would assist in explaining the research problem and furthermore recognize the efforts of scholars who had previously contributed immensely to similar research. The chapter intends to deepen the understanding of the study and close the perceived gaps.
Precisely, the chapter will be considered in three sub-headings:
- Conceptual Framework
- Theoretical Framework, and
- Empirical Review
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
The Concept of Business Consultancy
In the history of business consulting, Kipping (2002) highlights that it grew with the rise of management as a unique field of study. The first management consulting firm was Arthur D. Little, founded in 1886 by the MIT professor of the same name and was incorporated in 1909. Though Arthur D. Little later became a general management consultancy, it originally specialized in technical research. Booz Allen Hamilton was founded by Edwin G. Booz, a graduate of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, in 1914 as a management consultancy and the first to serve both industry and government clients.
The first wave of growth in the consulting industry was triggered by the GlassSteagall Banking Act in the 1930s, and was driven by demand for advice on finance, strategy, and organization. From the 1950s onwards consultancies not only expanded their activities considerably in the United States but also opened offices in Europe and later in Asia and South America. After World War II, a number of new management consulting firms formed, bringing a rigorous analytical approach to the study of management and strategy. Work carried out at McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, AT Kearney, Booz Allen Hamilton, and the Harvard Business School during the 1960s and 1970s developed the tools and approaches that would define the new field of strategic management, setting the groundwork for many consulting firms to follow. In 1983, Harvard Business School’s influence on the industry continued with the founding of Monitor Group by six professors. An earlier wave of growth in the early 1980s was driven by demand for strategy and organization consultancies. The wave of growth in the 1990s was driven by both strategy and information technology advice. In the second half of the 1980s the big accounting firms entered the IT consulting segment. The then Big Eight, now Big Four, accounting firms (PricewaterhouseCoopers; KPMG; Ernst and Young; Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu) had always offered advice in addition to their traditional services, but from the late 1980s onwards these activities became increasingly important in relation to the maturing market of accounting and auditing. By the mid-1990s these firms had outgrown those service providers focusing on corporate strategy and organization. While three of the Big Four legally divided the different service lines after the Enron scandals and the ensuing breakdown of Arthur Andersen, they are now back in the consulting business.
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, we described the research procedure for this study. A research methodology is a research process adopted or employed to systematically and scientifically present the results of a study to the research audience viz. a vis, the study beneficiaries.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
This chapter presents the analysis of data derived through the questionnaire and key informant interview administered on the respondents in the study area. The analysis and interpretation were derived from the findings of the study. The data analysis depicts the simple frequency and percentage of the respondents as well as interpretation of the information gathered. A total of hundred and twenty (120) questionnaires were administered to respondents of which 100 were returned. The analysis of this study is based on the number returned.
CHAPTER FIVE
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
CONCLUSION
In this study, our focus was to carryout a critical analysis on the impact of management consultancies on small scale business development. The study specifically was aimed at ascertaining if there is any significant relationship between management consulting and SMEs’ development in Nigeria. This study reviewed and anchored its framework on the Functionalist Theory and the The Critical Theory.
The study adopted the survey research design and randomly enrolled participants in the study. A total of 100 responses were validated from the enrolled participants where all respondent are active workers in Down Function Group Of Company Nigeria Limited.
The SMEs segment is imperative as found in the study, its progression essentially impacts on the general advancement of national economies and even social circle
(through business) in numerous nations. This powers academicians and different bodies to always investigate facilitators and deterrents of SMEs development. Various help programs have been created in different nations for diminishing/expelling hindrances for SMEs development. Frequently, they focused on money related help (credit programs) or instructive impact. These impacts together with SMEs bolster projects’ exercises have been somewhat all around broke down and reported (Chrisman and McMullan, 1996). Be that as it may, numerous different impacts on SMEs advancement and development can likewise be watched. One of them is the utilization of expert business counseling administrations that bring extra skill and give a specific push to SMEs development. This happens in light of the fact that counseling incorporates enlightening, specialized, preparing and other outside impacts with attributes of individual organizations.
It is demonstrative that business people and independent companies in Nigeria utilize the administrations of expert administration specialists in a little volume. There are a few explanations behind this; the most critical is the underdevelopment of that particular sort of counseling administration, absence of consciousness of business visionaries about this kind of administration, high costs, and so on. The exploration unmistakably demonstrated that there isn’t sufficient shared comprehension between the expert and the proprietor of an independent company, absence of clear advantages the administration will include and cost, however in generally speaking the proprietor administrators were ready to embrace the administrations. Having basically examined the discoveries of this work, the specialist makes the accompanying proposals; initially, proprietor administrators of SMEs ought to forcefully receive the administrations of administration experts to support their ability and maintainability. Research has uncovered that in a thick aggressive business condition, for example, Nigeria survival is the best most need of firms.
REFERENCES
- Akingbolu, R. (2014). “Why 70% of SMEs in Nigeria Fail,” http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/why-70of- smesfailninnigeria%20experts/71911/ accessed on 23 September 2017
- Appelbaum, S.H., Ritchie, S. & Shapiro, B.T. (1994). Mentoring revisited: An organisational Behaviour Construct. The International Journal of Career Management, Vol. 6 No. 3, pp. 3-10.
- Appelbaum, S.H. & Steed, A.J. (2005). The critical success factors in the client consultant relationship. Journal of Management Development, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 68-93.
- Banerjee, Abhijit, Karlan, D. & Zinman, J. (2015). “Six Randomized Evaluations of Microcredit: Introduction and Further Steps.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 7 (1): 1–21.
- Barisic, A. & Bozicevic, M. (2013). Role of Management Consulting in a Process of Professionalization of SME Management. Journal of Entrepreneurial Learning, 3 (2) p 144-15
