Yes that's what you think you're paying for.
But in reality, you're paying for AI-written powerpoint slides slapped together by a 23 yr old kid fresh out of college (for another client, with your logo slapped on it), that the senior partner looked at 2 times in a meeting and gave a few nitpicks about.
And the senior partner hasn't ever done anything real either, since again, their whole career has been selling powerpoints and never facing any consequences (upsides or downsides) for the outcomes of their recommendations where they could learn anything.
But of course, the buyer of consulting services, usually an in-house executive at a giant company who had nothing to do with building the company (since that happened 100 years ago), usually also knows nothing.
So what you have is an arrangement where glorified children sell google/chatgpt sourced generic powerpoint 'Expertise' to faceless managerial class members who either:
a) have been promoted beyond their level of expertise and are afraid of taking responsibility for anything for fear of getting fired
or
b) are cynical and experienced and want to launder their actions through an external 3rd party as a reputation-covering mechanism
or
c) the largest cohort: the lazy, do-nothing managerial class who don't want to do work their own teams actually should be taking on so they outsource it
Source: I have worked in consulting for 10 years.
But in reality, you're paying for AI-written powerpoint slides slapped together by a 23 yr old kid fresh out of college (for another client, with your logo slapped on it), that the senior partner looked at 2 times in a meeting and gave a few nitpicks about.
And the senior partner hasn't ever done anything real either, since again, their whole career has been selling powerpoints and never facing any consequences (upsides or downsides) for the outcomes of their recommendations where they could learn anything.
But of course, the buyer of consulting services, usually an in-house executive at a giant company who had nothing to do with building the company (since that happened 100 years ago), usually also knows nothing.
So what you have is an arrangement where glorified children sell google/chatgpt sourced generic powerpoint 'Expertise' to faceless managerial class members who either:
a) have been promoted beyond their level of expertise and are afraid of taking responsibility for anything for fear of getting fired
or
b) are cynical and experienced and want to launder their actions through an external 3rd party as a reputation-covering mechanism
or
c) the largest cohort: the lazy, do-nothing managerial class who don't want to do work their own teams actually should be taking on so they outsource it
Source: I have worked in consulting for 10 years.