Romanian companies are still reluctant when it comes to management consultancy. Most managers, especially those of state-owned companies, do not understand yet the purpose of such services, although the market offer has already attained a high level.
"Many of the Romanian companies' managers can hardly accept the idea of somebody else advising them. They do not understand the value of management counseling, therefore they are not willing to pay for it," says Anca Ioan, general manager of Roland Berger&Partner company.
Her opinion is also shared by Dan Humelnicu, the manager of a Romanian counseling company, Ross Consulting.
Among the services provided by management consultants there are programmes offering assistance for privatisation, restructuring, mergers and acquisitions. Counseling companies also provide their customers with marketing and development strategies, give them solutions for entering the market and offer them assistance as to costs' reduction and computer systems' improving.
Anca Ioan says that the only foreign company specialised in management consultancy having opened a permanent office in Romania is operating on a rather changeable market, which is still little receptive.
Roland Berger's main customers are multinational companies and small-sized foreign enterprises present on the Romanian market.
The company also offers its services to Romanian private companies, but more often than not it does so by means of European Union and World Bank funds (the Phare programmes and the PSAL programme, respectively).
However, there are several Romanian companies that use management consultancy, realising that such professional services cannot be replaced.
Luiza Mateescu, sales manager at the Adesgo company, explains how she started using the services offered by Roland Berger in order to implement a new distribution strategy, a project that lasted for three months.
"I chose the counseling services of this company in order to benefit from professional opinions of people specialising in some particular domains and from information that was really indispensable when it came to making the right decision," Luiza Mateescu says.
At an international level, counseling activities developed by first-rank companies operating on the world market of professional services are currently becoming more and more important.
Their increasingly important role led to a tendency of separating the audit and accountancy services from those dealing exclusively with counseling. The most recent example is provided by Andersen Consulting, which decided to formally detach itself from Andersen Worldwide and Arthur Andersen.
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