ABSTRACT
The engineering-based consultants were at the origin of management consulting in the nineteenth century and thrived during the first half of the twentieth century extending their reach beyond the factory into offices and beyond the private sector into public administration. They operated against the backdrop of a broader, global movement promoting what has widely come to be referred to as "scientific management". One could consider business process reengineering (BPR), which was the craze during the 1990s and aimed at improving organizational efficiency and customer focus by removing layers of middle management. While the accountants clearly had a head start in IT-related consulting, IT-service companies also entered the field on a larger scale since the 1990s and quickly managed to build strong positions. While A. T. Kearney (ATK) and Berger have survived so far, other ice cubes have melted. This is the case of Arthur D. Little (ADL), which applied for bankruptcy protection in 2002 and was bought by Paris-based Altran Technologies.
