1. Indeed looking at the situation with fresh eyes. The people inside a business might not have the slack to rethink things, and are used to the way things are (German has a nice word there, "betriebsblind" = inured to the working methods of a company and therefore blind to their shortcomings).
2. Institutionalised industrial espionage, under the banner of "best practices".
3. Improving communication inside a company. Consultants can talk to people on the floor that know what they're doing (but are often ignored), and translate it and transmit it back to upper management levels. (Note that this is a best case scenario - there are consultants that take pride in interacting with the C-suite only.)
4. Professional scapegoat, to justify and sign off on whatever management actually wants to do ("We don't want to fire you, but the consultants said we have to, in order to save the company.")
I'd say some of these functions are actually benign, though some only to the executives that hire the consultants.
1. Indeed looking at the situation with fresh eyes. The people inside a business might not have the slack to rethink things, and are used to the way things are (German has a nice word there, "betriebsblind" = inured to the working methods of a company and therefore blind to their shortcomings).
2. Institutionalised industrial espionage, under the banner of "best practices".
3. Improving communication inside a company. Consultants can talk to people on the floor that know what they're doing (but are often ignored), and translate it and transmit it back to upper management levels. (Note that this is a best case scenario - there are consultants that take pride in interacting with the C-suite only.)
4. Professional scapegoat, to justify and sign off on whatever management actually wants to do ("We don't want to fire you, but the consultants said we have to, in order to save the company.")
I'd say some of these functions are actually benign, though some only to the executives that hire the consultants.