Consulting has been around for a long time. The principle is to get advice, rather than people to do your work. For a while consulting in IT lost its place, because essentially contract workers were also defined as consultants. Consulting migrated to contract work, and generally people preferred to call themselves consultants rather than contractors.

The issue came about when the question being addressed became to big for a simple one on one. The consultant needed a team to gather information, analyse facts, etc. before a recommendation or advise could be given. Those workers themselves would work for the consultant, but would actually be contractors or employees to the consultant.

Naturally the consultants had to find sustainable business, and so many migrated into the work space, delivering more than consulting. Hence the confusion proliferated.

Today, many suppliers, of products and services, would freely dispense advise to customers. The customer should be very wary of that advise. Many very logical ideas and words are developed just to create a demand for products. Is there really such good value in it for the customer to break up his integrated database and replace it with best of breed, plug and play, off the shelve packages, and a very huge and complex enterprise integration architecture?

A good manager knows how to surround himself with a team of skills, experience and people who can be trusted to add value and sound advice. Such trust relationships you cannot build up in a short sales meeting. We have grown many such relationships, and this is our pride.