The Bulgarian Association of Management Consulting Organizations (BAMCO) gathered management consultants from the country and abroad as well as business representatives at the forum “Management Consultants: Market Expectations and Challenges” on 25 July 2016 in Sofia.

At the opening, Ms Gergana Mantarkova, Chair of BAMCO’s Management Board and Managing Partner of KPMG in Bulgaria, outlined the priorities of the Association such as providing an effective infrastructure for the necessary connectivity between consultants, expanding the cooperation with business and government organizations, promoting the development of consulting competencies and certification as well as ethical norms. “It is important to engage the young consultants in the conversation about the future of the consulting profession as they are the ones who will shape it and BAMCO will work actively in this respect,” Ms Mantarkova emphasized.

A special guest at the forum was Mr Sorin Caian, Chairman of the Board of CMC Global. He discussed the role of management consultants and how it has changed over time. “Local consultants will disappear in the traditional form of the concept. Consultants now need to know their region as well as the global tendencies to be able to add value for their clients,” Mr Caian emphasized. “The use of edge technologies will be something normal for them,” he added.

The interim results of the project “European Management Consultant: Competence Development Programme” were presented at the forum. The project is implemented by BAMCO in strategic partnership with organizations from Poland, Denmark and the Netherlands and funded under the Erasmus+ programme. Ms Ekaterina Ignatova, BAMCO Executive Director, familiarized the participants with the results from the European survey on the topic of “What do businesses expect of management consultants?”

Dragomira Shuleva CMC, Chairperson of BAMCO’s Training and Certification Committee, outlined the model of the competence framework for management consultants created under the project. She also presented the process of work which used the CMC Global competence framework. “We added specification of the requirements in all stages of the consultancy work to ensure compliance with the EN 16114 standard as well as highlights outlined in the cooperation with colleagues on the project,” Ms Shuleva emphasized.

The participants in the forum were engaged in discussions in the interactive communication format of “world café” led by Ms Shuleva. They identified ideas about professional development, understanding the expectations of businesses from management consultants and many other.

Upcoming training under the project “European Management Consultant: Competence Development Programme” was presented at the forum. It will give consultants from Bulgaria the opportunity to acquire new skills.
 
From left: Dragomira Shuleva CMC, Gergana Mantarkova, Sorin Caian, Ekaterina Ignatova