Hi,I was thinking we have all these rankings of prestigious consulting firms based quality of candidates hired, training provided etc. but is there a ranking of management consultancy firms in terms of value added to the client i.e. from the client perspective. I guess everyone will differ on what value added will mean but I would think of it as something that increases 'long-term' shareholder/company value.Should we start one? How would you rank management consultancies (not IT) in terms of hugely positive impact they have had on most if not all clients they have worked with.

There's one fundamental problem with this idea - most clients of consulting firms never reveal to the outside world that they've had teams of consultants addressing issues in their organisation; and the consultancies themselves are tied in to legal requirements not to disclose who they have worked for or the outcomes / details of their engagements.In the UK the MCA has endeavoured to do work in this area. Their annual awards process invites clients to submit case studies of successful consulting assignments. But in practice only a tiny proportion of consulting firms' clients are willing to open up their consulting spend to public scrutiny. Similarly they've commissioned reports to show that £ spent on consulting produces a return several times the amount invested. It would be massively in the consulting industry's interests for such openess to succeed, as it would reduce the uncertainties surrounding the financial return that clients stand to secure from working with consultancies. But in practice the secrecy issue prevents this from really taking off - and is something that only consulting firms' clients (rather than consultancies themselves) can change.Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com