New Director for CMCE

2020 has seen much change, and the Centre for Management Consulting Excellence is no exception, as it is also now under new leadership. Unlike many other changes in 2020, however, this has been long planned and I am delighted that Nick Bush has taken over from me as Director.

It is worth, by way of a valedictory comment, to review the development of the Centre since its inception.

‘Why is it’, an academic asked me some years ago, ‘that we academics do so much research and yet management consultants pay so little attention to it?’

It has been long apparent that there is no ready depository of management consulting knowhow, nor is there an easy route for academic research to gain traction in application by management consultants. The Centre was therefore conceived by the Worshipful Company of Management Consultants to bridge this gap. It was originally planned to be a joint venture with a business school, but when these plans failed to work out, the Company decided to go it alone, and asked me to lead the project as the Centre’s first Director.

We launched in early 2017 and since then the Centre has prospered through the efforts of a large team of volunteers from the Company, who have helped in driving towards the Centre’s strategic objectives of building identity, community and value within a viable enterprise. So how have we done?

We swiftly developed a logo and web site and promoted the Centre through our branded events – evening Showcase seminars and an annual Conference, plus the launch of the annual CMCE Consulting Research Awards. We benefit from core support of the members of the Company but have expanded the community to be twice as large. We have conducted research projects of interest in management consultancy (and have several in hand) and are developing an on-line knowledge bank of materials of value to the management consulting community, albeit rather slowly. We have attracted sponsorship both in funding and in the provision of facilities for our events. And, after some reluctance (on my part!), we have made a virtue of necessity and are running our events virtually.

It has been a good start for an organisation being run entirely by volunteers, and what pleases me is that there is continuing scope for considerable development. Certainly it speaks to a major requirement of government that academia demonstrates the value of academic research through impact assessment, and an increasing number of students are interested in access to academic research and practitioner experience that CMCE offers. So the Centre, I am sure, will continue to thrive and grow under Nick’s leadership.

Calvert Markham