企管顧問究竟有何本事
蕭美惠譯自路透外電 It has long been common practice for f irms that are short of bright strategic ideas to turn to outsiders for help. The se outsiders usually come from the growi ng ranks of management consultants. Inde ed, a large part of this now massive ind ustry was built on the rage for strategi c planning in the 1960s. Business Week o nce wrote that strategic planning “spaw ned a mini-industry of brainy consulting boutiques”, backed by the belief that you could plot a strategy that would saf ely steer your company to uninterrupted triumph if only you thought hard enough ”.
缺乏良好經營策略概念的企業向外尋求協助，已是行之有年的作法。這些外部資源通常來自為數愈來愈多的管理顧問公司。的確，現今規模龐大的顧問行業，有一大部分是1960年代策略規畫熱潮之下的產物。《商業週刊》中曾寫道，策略規畫「衍生出一個由腦袋靈光的小型顧問公司所組成的迷你產業」，其背後的信條是「只要你夠深思熟慮，就能規畫出一套能夠引導企業一路順暢、直達勝利的策略」。
Several of the leading strategy consul tants were based in Boston, a location t hat kept them in close touch with Harvar d, a university that was (and still is) the source of many of the brightest (and most sellable) ideas about corporate st rategy. The consultants would act as int ermediaries, interpreting and developing the ideas that came out of the universi ties for the benefit of the corporate ma sses. They would also disseminate their own ideas. In the 1960s, for example, Mc Kinsey and a number of other firms were responsible for spreading the concept of matrix management to the industrial com munity at large.
幾家頂尖的策略顧問公司都位於波士頓，這個地點最靠近哈佛大學，而哈佛大學曾是（迄今仍是）許多最高明（也最具賣點）的企業策略之發源地。顧問公司擔任仲介角色，詮釋並發展源自哈佛的概念，以服務廣大的企業群。它們同時也傳播自己的理念，例如在1960年代，麥肯錫企管顧問公司與好幾家同業主動向整個業界宣揚矩陣管理的概念。
A growth business And very successful they have been at it too. Few low-tech b usinesses have grown like management con sulting in the past few years. Growth ra tes of 20～30％ a year have not been unu sual. Yet management consultancy is not an infant industry. In its early years i t was not a technology-driven business t hat might have expected to enjoy such gr owth. Firms like Arthur D. Little can tr ace their pedigree back to the 19th cent ury. McKinsey and Booz-Allen & Hamilton began consulting in the early years of t he 20th century. What then accounts for the boom that they have been enjoying？
這些管理顧問公司在這方面算是做得相當成功。過去幾年來，很少低科技產業能像管理顧問行業般成長得這麼快，一年的業績成長個2 、3成是稀鬆平常的事。不過管理顧問並不算新興行業。在這個行業的萌芽時期，它無法像科技導向產業一樣預期自身會有如此高的成長率。像亞瑟迪雷特企管顧問公司這類的公司，可以一路回溯到19世紀。麥肯錫企管顧問公司與布茲‧亞倫與漢彌爾頓企管顧問公司則在20 世紀初開創他們的顧問事業。那麼，究竟是何種原因使得這些公司能享有傲人的業績成長？
First, it is important to recognise th at the term "management consultancy" cov ers several different disciplines. Altho ugh some firms have been growing fast, o thers have been showing the more normal expected growth rates of a mature busine ss.
首先我們要了解，「管理顧問」這個名詞涵蓋了好幾個不同領域。儘管某些公司成長快速，其他公司卻只顯示出成熟產業應有的正常成長率。
The business can be divided roughly in to five disciplines:1.Corporate strategy ,2.Organisational structure (including f inance, human resources and marketing),3 .Public-sector management,4.Information technology,5.Product development.
管理顧問業大略可區分為下列五大領域：1. 企業策略、2.企業組織架構（包括財務、人力資源與行銷）、3.公共事業管理、4.資訊科技、5.產品研發。
In 1980, the three staples of the cons ultancy business (the first three items on the list above) accounted for some 80 ％ of all consultancy revenue; by 1990 t hat had slipped to about 60％, and today it is probably under 50％.
1980年時，管理顧問業的三大領域（上列五項中的前三項）的營收占整個行業的80％；到了1990年則下降至60％，現在可能剩下不到一半。
High tech gets hot In the 1990s, the r ed-hot area was information technology ( IT). It almost single-handedly pushed th e business into the stratosphere. In som e years, revenue in the UK from IT consu ltancy grew by 50％; growth in revenue f rom more traditional corporate-strategy advice rarely grew by more than single d igits. There is little crossover between strategy consulting and IT advice. A su rvey in 2001 showed that more than three -quarters of a sample of large global bu sinesses did not use their traditional s trategy consultants for advice on IT-rel ated matters.
在1990年代，當紅炸子雞是資訊產業，幾乎光靠它就將管理顧問這一行業推到前所未有的高峰。在某些年分，英國的資訊產業顧問公司年成長率可高達50％，而傳統企業策略顧問公司的營收成長率則很少達到兩位數。策略顧問與資訊顧問二者間幾乎沒有交集。2001年的一項調查顯示，超過四分之三被採樣的大型跨國企業對於資訊相關的事務都不求助於傳統的策略顧問。
The growth in IT consulting was fuelle d by the arrival of the Internet and by the end-of-the-century fears about the M illennium Bug, a programming of computer s that meant that they could read only t he last two digits of any one year. Henc e, went the fear, they would confuse the year 2000 with the year 1900. A pension er whose pension was due to begin in 200 0 might have to wait another 100 years f or any pay-out. In the event, the pensio ner didn have to wait. Either the bug ha d been a phantom, or the consultants did such a good job that they crushed it co mpletely.
資訊顧問的成長乃拜網際網路與世紀末對千禧蟲的恐懼所賜。千禧蟲指的是當時的電腦程式設計上，只能讓電腦讀取西元年分的後兩碼，因此到了20世紀末，人們開始害怕2000年會被電腦解讀為1900年。一個預計2000年開始要領退休金的人，可能得多等一百年才能領到錢。但結果證實他根本毋需等待。千禧蟲若不是無中生有，就是資訊顧問太厲害了，因為他們把千禧蟲殺得精光。
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