please provide a definition....and yes, I am aware that i can search on google or wikipedia....i'm looking for an individual perspective....

I'm interested to hear this too!Please participate in this thread.

I'm going for the classic"Science of borrowing a watch from someone and telling them the correct time"

providing advice to an organisation/carrying out a project for an organisation who either do not have the resources in house, or do not have the time to deal with a particular business issue.

An umbrella term which covers the spectrum of business advisory from strategy down to implementation across all the areas of a business [supply, logistics, people, IT etc]

Consultants are likely to be people who come in and have to make difficult and often unpopular decisions which incumbent management don't really want to make for fear of backlash and thus the blame gets shifted to the consultants. Let's face it, we've all been there at one time or another!