Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants for a number of reasons, including gaining external (and presumably objective) advice and accessing consultants' specialized expertise regarding concerns that call for additional oversight.

As a result of their exposure to and relationships with numerous organizations, consulting firms are typically aware of industry "best practices". However, the specific nature of situations under consideration may limit the ability or appropriateness of transferring such practices from one organization to another. Management consulting is an additional service to internal management functions and, for various legal and practical reasons, may not be seen as a replacement for internal management. Unlike interim management, management consultants do not become part of the organization to which they provide services.

Consultancies provide services such as: organizational change management assistance, development of coaching skills, process analysis, technology implementation, strategy development, or operational improvement services. Management consultants often bring their own proprietary methodologies or frameworks to guide the identification of problems and to serve as the basis for recommendations with a view to more effective or efficient ways of performing work tasks.

The economic function of management consulting firms is in general to help and facilitate the development, rationalization and optimization of the various markets pertaining to the geographic areas and jurisdictions in which they operate. However, the exact nature of the value of such a service model may vary greatly across markets and its description is therefore contingent.

Management consulting grew with the rise of management, as a unique field of study. One of the first management consulting firms was Arthur D. Little Inc., founded in 1886 as a partnership, and later incorporated in 1909. Although Arthur D. Little later became a general management consultancy, it originally specialized in technical research.

As Arthur D. Little focused on technical research for the first few years, the first management consultancy was that of Frederick Winslow Taylor, who in 1893 opened an independent consulting practice in Philadelphia. His business card read "Consulting Engineer – Systematizing Shop Management and Manufacturing Costs a Specialty". By inventing Scientific Management, also known as Taylor's method, Frederick Winslow Taylor invented the first method of organizing work, spawning the careers of many more management consultants. For example, one of Taylor's early collaborators, Morris Llewellyn Cooke, opened his own management consultancy in 1905. Taylor's method was used worldwide until industry switched to a method invented by W. Edwards Deming.^{[citation needed]}

The initial period of growth in the consulting industry was triggered by the Glass–Steagall Banking Act in the 1930s, and was driven by demand for advice on finance, strategy and organization. From the 1950s onwards, consultancies expanded their activities considerably in the United States, and also opened offices in Europe and later in Asia and South America.

The management consulting firms Stern Stewart, Marakon Associates, and Alcar pioneered value-based management (VBM), or "managing for value", in the 1980s based on the academic work of Joel Stern, Bill Alberts, and Professor Alfred Rappaport. Other consulting firms including McKinsey and BCG developed VBM approaches. Value-based management became prominent during the late 1980s and 1990s.