In this section we explain a little of the Background to the Management Consultancy Profession and set out the MCAHK Professional Guidelines.

Background

The management consultancy profession dates back to the mid 1920's when eminent specialists such as Charles Bedeaux started advising manufacturing clients on incentives and performance improvement.  The Charles Bedeaux Company which later became Inbucon Management Consultants became a leading force in both the USA and in Britain [Inbucon also operated for a period in the UK under the name of Associated Industrial Consultants (AIC)].  The earliest consulting companies in the United Kingdom such as Urwick Orr and Partners, P A Consulting Group, P-E Consulting Group and W S Atkins all starting business in the early 1930's.  This embryo group of companies developed international practices and operated internationally from the 1950's.  The UK Management Consultancy Association was formed during this period (1956).  Consulting business was particularly buoyant in the 1960 and early 1970's with all companies expanding at record levels.  Famous American names such as MacKinsey, Bain and Partners, Boston Consulting Group and Arthur D Little, came into prominence.  Recessions in 1973 and 1978 forced many consulting companies to retrench and to reorient their offerings away from generalist management consulting into specialist groups.  The 1980's was again a period of expansion and the forming of larger entities through acquisition and merger.  It was not until the early 1970's that the big Accounting and Auditing practices addressed themselves to the consulting profession, but with their many contacts in private business and in the public sector soon outgrew the traditional consulting specialists. The accounting houses dominated the consulting market during the 1990's.

Now at the beginning of a new millennium and with the formation of the MCAHK, consultancies in Hong Kong (many of whom are derivatives of famous names of the last six decades) are ready to serve their clients with expert and impartial advice towards business improvement and development.