IT consulting is the bounded half of this market and the half most often sold as something else. The distinguishing feature is not seniority or price, it is that the engagement has an end: a question is asked, work is done, an answer is written down, and the relationship can stop there without anything breaking. A monthly contract does not have that shape, and confusing the two is how a business ends up paying a retainer for advice it received once.
IT management consulting should leave a deliverable a third party can use
The test is portability. If the output of the engagement is a document another supplier could implement from, the work was consulting. If it is a set of findings that only make sense as a preamble to that firm doing the work, it was pre-sales. Both are legitimate and only one is worth paying for on its own, so the deliverable should be agreed in writing before the engagement rather than discovered at the end of it.
The four questions worth a fixed fee when you hire IT consultants
Whether to move a workload and what it costs once licences and data movement are counted. Why something is slow when nobody changed anything. What next year's spend should be and what is inside it. And whether an incumbent provider is doing what it was contracted to do, which cannot be asked of the incumbent. Each has an answer, and each is cheaper as a piece of work than as a year of not knowing.
Nobody in the IT consulting business publishes a day rate
Not one of the twenty-nine providers read for this record publishes a consulting rate, in the same way almost none publishes a managed rate. That is worth knowing before the first call: you will be quoted per engagement, the quote will reflect an estimate of effort, and the only lever you have is the scope. A tightly written question is therefore the cheapest thing a buyer can bring.
Questions people ask about it consulting
What is the difference between IT consulting and managed services consulting?
Consulting answers a bounded question and ends. Managed IT is an ongoing contract for running the estate. A firm that sells you a retainer to answer one question has sold you the wrong product.
How much do information technology consulting services cost?
No provider in this record publishes a rate. Consulting is quoted per engagement, which means the scope you write is the main thing you control.
What should an IT service consulting engagement produce?
Something another supplier could implement from: the current state, costed options, a recommendation with its reasoning, and enough specification to act on.
Can my current provider act as a managed IT consultant and do the review?
It can, and it cannot review itself. For a read on whether an incumbent is delivering, buy it from somebody who cannot take over the contract.