Assessment of the effectiveness of marketing strategies used by local management consulting organizations: a case of selected organizations in Dar es Salaam

This study investigated the marketing strategies of management consulting organizations in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. It also explored what organizations can learn from each other in marketing consultancy services. The study was important because the management consultancy industry of Tanzania marketing strategies is not understood by stakeholders. Therefore in de-depth interviews with managers of management consulting organizations in Tanzania was undertaken to understand the strategies. Consultancy organizations at different stages of development use different strategies in achieve their goals. At the inception stage when firms are still inexperienced the strategies that work are personal selling such as door to door marketing and offering free trial services. At the consolidation stage when they need to establish themselves, they use brochures and publications of educative articles in journals and newspapers. At the maturity stage, strategies that work best are sponsoring their partners and associates to join professional and social clubs, using billboards and familiarization with their existing clients to obtain referrals. The industry faces many problems. These include limited awareness of intellectual property rights and procurement regulations, limited marketing competencies and limited appreciation of value of consulting on part of clients.Operating consultants are advised to adapt different methods that work at certain stages to grow. It is necessary to learn from each other the strategies that have worked before. They have to develop training programs that suit the needs of local community. Policy makers should provide more training to the operating consultants to increase their competence. They also have to provide more education to the procurement officers for them to understand the importance of using local consultants in effort to save foreign currencies used to pay foreigners.