Exploring the National Consulting Index - Indicators of a Strong Management Consulting Sector

The National Consulting Index (NCI) is the revenue contribution of the management consulting sector (MCS) to a nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). It is a useful metric that allows for a comparative analysis of the strength of an MCS in one country with others. This index was created by the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes (ICMCI) eight years ago and has developed to hold significance in the global management consulting landscape.

This paper provides a data-driven analysis which looks at the correlation between the NCI and seventeen other global indexes of country-by-country characteristics. The analysis revealed a noteworthy correlation between the NCI and six of these indexes. These were the Corruption Perceptions Index, GDP per capita, the Human Development Index, the Index of Economic Freedom, the Global Innovation Index and Hofstede’s Individualism. The paper makes recommendations for further research around the NCI and correlation testing with other global indexes.