Our courses are unique in that they are led by highly experienced practising management consultants with full professional consulting certifications. Our tutors bring up to date consulting practice into the classroom based on their current work with clients in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors.
Here is a list of FAQs. If you need further clarification or have any further questions please call or email us.
Live online and face-to-face course options
Our live online courses feature interactive Zoom webinars (or your preferred corporate videoconferencing solution). This gives participants access to cutting edge consulting practice and crucial tacit knowledge shared during the interactive video conferencing sessions.
Each webinar is carefully customised around your career aspirations, skillset and availability. They involve personalised webinars with Mark Law (see left column) and consist of a mixture of carefully tailored webinars and online modules.
Most participants take two online modules a week (can be varied). The Level 7 Certificate in Professional Consulting typically features 10 webinars over 5 weeks and the Level 7 Diploma 20 webinars over 10 weeks.
No. There are many dozens of books on management consulting and if anything they are confusing rather than enlightening. For example there are many hundreds of different analytical models that can be used on consulting engagements which are way too many to be of practical use.
Our courses are fully self-contained and we recommend specific relevant reading during the course.
We are approved by the Chartered Management Institute (which runs the Institute of Consulting) and the Institute of Value Management. Our tutors are fully certified management consultants and value management practitioners and trainers.
Visit our Lead Tutor’s profile on LinkedIn to view professional certifications and student recommendations and testimonials.
Absolutely yes! About a third of our participants have MBAs and they tell us that our frameworks are a great way to integrate the learning that is normally covered separately by different academic departments at business schools. Also MBA programmes are not normally optimised for the management consulting profession and miss many key elements that are needed to succeed in this competitive industry.
By the way, we often have ex McKinsey, BCG and Bain consultants on our courses who really value the opportunity to learn how to operate outside the pampered environment of these big firms where they are well supported by researchers / analysts and their work is fed to them by the firm’s marketing department and senior partners.
Consulting courses & qualifications
See here for a full explanation of which courses to attend to achieve each qualification.
We recommend most of our students to do Level 7 qualifications. This is because the higher level qualification is of career and commercial advantage. Also in practice there’s not that much difference between Levels 5 & 7 despite the content being notionally aimed at undergraduate (Level 5) and masters degree (Level 7).
NB The big problem with doing Level 5 is that you cannot easily upgrade it to a Level 7 qualification later on without starting from scratch.
Yes. However only within the relevant Level. Please note that it is not possible to easily upgrade from Level 5 to Level 7 without starting from scratch.
You complete the required courses, face-to-face or online. We then email you the relevant Level 5 or 7 assignments with full supporting documentation. You complete these in your own time supported by your tutor.
No. All assessments are completed in your own time with the support from our tutor. Candidates need to complete their assignments within 36 months of finishing the relevant courses.
The institute is looking for typically 3,000 to 4,500 words per Unit, depending on the Unit.
- For the Level 5 & 7 Award candidates need to complete 1 Unit.
- For the Level 5 & 7 Certificate candidates need to complete 2 Units.
- For the Level 5 & 7 Diploma candidates need to complete 6 or 7 Units respectively (the New Level 7 Diploma now requires 4 Units).
Although we’ve had several students complete the Level 7 Diploma within 3 weeks of finishing the course this is rather unusual. It typically takes 3-4 months for people to complete the Diploma assignments. Many of our candidates aim to complete one Unit per month.
Value Management courses and qualifications
Visit the following link for a full explanation.
For practical purposes these terms are synonymous. They all feature the same elements of structured team based creative problem solving. When Lawrence Miles invented the practice at General Electric back in the 1940s he called it Value Analysis.
In the 1950s the US Navy didn’t have a budget for analysis but had a significant budget for engineering. Therefore Admiral W.D. Leggett renamed it Value Engineering. During the 1990s the practice spread to all parts of management which lead to the term Value Management which is used in the European Standard BS EN 12973:2020.
In the USA the practice has in recent years been referred to as Value Engineering but they are now shifting to the term Value Methodology. Some organisations refer to its use in programmes as Value Management and in detailed design as Value Engineering.
Please click this link to download the full course programme.
These qualifications are overseen by the professional body ‘Value For Europe’. Visit their website for a full explanation.
No. The Institute of Value Management, under Value For Europe, requires face-to-face training for all certified value practitioners. This is because it is a highly practical subject. There are parallels with the medical profession. As a patient would you be happy if your dentist had secured his or her professional qualifications online?
ELCAS (Enhanced Learning Credits) for Service Leavers
All of our courses can be ELCAS funded. Please email laura@amskills.com for details.
We have helped many service leavers with their ELCAS funding applications. Please email laura@amskills.com for details.