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Manjari Raman
Is your management consultant giving you your money's worth in wise counsel? Help is now at hand for companies suffering from Chronic Management Consultant Fatigue Syndrome. The International Council of Management Consulting Institutes (ICMCI), the world apex body of individual management consultants, is tightening tabs to ensure that companies get a bang for their consultancy buck.
At its recent executive-council meeting held in Goa last fortnight, the council initiated efforts to bring strict world-class standards to the management-consultancy business across the globe and, of course, in India.
A task force has been set up under Barry Curnow of UK to develop a universal body of knowledge (UBK), which will be a benchmark knowledge-base for management consultants. The UBK update will be completed by April 1999, and will be distributed to all member countries. They will be obliged to follow the benchmark as a basic requirement for management consultants seeking ICMCI certification
Pertinently, the ICMCIemploys a strict criteria for certifying individual management consultants as certified management consultants. In India, the first ICMCI certification examination is to be held in December 1998--and every six months thereafter. The examination will comprise a written test as well as a viva. Successful candidates will be awarded a ICMCI certificate--and these certified management consultants (CMCs) will thus have global credentials for their ability to deliver results.
According to Netherlands-based HKJM de Sonnaville, first vice-chairman of ICMCI: "When a consultant is a CMC we can guarantee that in the past, he or she, has worked according to world-class standards."
Nevertheless, the ICMCI is also trying to raise the bar on certification. A second task force, led by Richard Elliot of Australia, is developing a "competency model" to be adopted world wide. Under this model, the CMC test will be re-tailored to assess the management consultant's "competency" rather than just the "knowledge".
According toIMCI chairman Walter E Vieira--the first Asian to head the world body: "The insistence on familiarity with the "body of knowledge" and compliance with the competency model will ensure there is an international standard for management consultants."
Clearly, the ICMCI's aim is to provide a common denominator for measuring the competence of management consultants, in each country, depending on its level of development. A complete revised structure and format for the setting of worldwide standard--based on UBK and the competency model--will be presented at ICMCI's Amsterdam conference in April 1999, for approval by the general Congress.
Says Vieira: "Competency thinking brings into its ambit the feedback from a sample of clients whom the consultant has serviced. It brings into focus his communication and relationships skills and his ability to think through ethical issues. All this takes the emphasis from mere knowledge to competency."
However, Indian management consultants applying for CMC in December1998, will find that even the present certification process is stringent. The evaluation rests on three pillars: the consultant's knowledge about his profession, practical management experience, and a specialisation.
Separating the chaff in the consultancy business in the future will be ICMCI criteria like: at least three to five years in the profession, with at least 1,200 hours a year spent as a consultant, a declaration that the consultant behaves according to a code of ethics, an assessment exam, interviews, and finally, clients' evaluation.
In India, it's the IMCI-affiliated Institute of Management Consultants of India (ICMI). Only one institute or association can be affiliated to the council from each country, and this institute represents the Institute of Consultants in that country. Also, individual management consultants cannot be members of ICMCI, only country Institutes can be members of the ICMCI. At present, the 11-year-old ICMCI has 27 member countries. However, at the working session atGoa, the ICMCI received a formal request for affiliation from IMC Japan and IMC Norway.
In India, the certification process is going to impact 557 members of the IMCI. Pertinently, in the country, the IMCI is introducing a grandfather clause that all IMCI members, who were members prior to 1996, will be deemed to have been awarded the CMC without going through the competency-model requirement.
However, all post-1996 members will have to undergo the examination--or else, continue as just members of IMC (MIMC). The latter do not enjoy the global-reciprocity facility extended to CMCs, who are eligible to work in each other's countries. So finally, there's no need to worry about your consultant's value addition: just ask if he is certified to consult.
For more information on ICMCI, visit: http://www.icmci.iorg/icmci/
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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This story was printed from Net Express located at http://www.expressindia.com. Net Express provides a portal to India, with news from The Indian Express and The Financial Express along with sites on travel and tourism, the entertainment industry, the power sector, the environment and much more.
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