International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the question of the effectiveness of business consultants in operations development projects. It does this by analysing the results of collaboration between a multinational firm and business consultants who applied the theory of constraints to a series of development projects.

Design/methodology/approach – Following the presentation of an overview of business consultants and the need to measure the effectiveness of business consulting practices, the paper presents empirical data on the return on investment achieved from 20 development projects in the multinational company under study.

Findings – The findings indicate that the involvement of business consultants in development projects has a positive impact on outcomes and can be justified in financial terms.

Research limitations/implications – The generalise ability of the results in service sector companies remains to be tested. The data is limited to a set of internal operations development consulting projects within one multinational company. Management consultants and managers will benefit from the results of study.

Originality/value – The study provides important insights into the assessment of the effectiveness of business consultants in operations development.