I tend to think of consultancy projects as applied research - taking ideas and implementing them in practical, hands-on ways. That said there is often a problem of some kind at the root of a consultancy project. The real skill in those circumstances is in identifying it and managing the clients expectations of it. It would be nice to solve all the problems identified, unfortunately on some occasions budgets and expectations only permit the identification and ownership stages to take place. Nevertheless, this is still a valuable process.
In turn consultancy feeds the research process by giving real world feedback into the research loop, making better results possible.

My property consultancy activities have tended
to be concentrated in three main areas:

• The construction and evaluation of property investment portfolios;
• The impact of legislative change; and
• Urban regeneration.

It has always been a mystery to me why management consultants sometimes seem to be the least experienced and most callow participants in the market. It seems axiomatic that clients should be paying for experience in this of all areas.