Digitization as an opportunity for management consultants during the COVID-19 epidemic

The restrictions due to the COVID-19 epidemic affected all companies, raising the possibility and necessity of using and providing digital consulting services. In our study, we examine whether management consultants and their clients are open to providing and using the consulting service in digital form. Our in-depth interview research conducted in 2020-21 in North-Eastern Hungary was preceded by questionnaire surveys of management consultants in 2001 and 2005-06, and in-depth interview research in 2011-12 and 2015-16, the change in the openness of consultants to information technology is compared to our surveys. Based on the results, a significant proportion of consultants provide consulting services in digital form and are happy to use new types of knowledge acquisition and organization methods. Clients are much less open to using the management consulting service in digital form than consultants. They consider personal contact to be very important, they find physical contact and nonverbal communication necessary.