If what the author claims is true and consulting is basically making up numbers to fit some conclusion and general fluff work, I'm not sure that's a valuable skill to pick up. Sure, you could pick up networking and ...?
It all depends on what you're offering and what the customer needs. We wanted long term contracts, so it was always in our best interest to provide a good solution. If companies outgrew us and wanted to insource IT, we would document and hand over what we managed, because to do otherwise not only would be a dick move, but it would kill our reputation.
I imagine it's much different for a big name firm that never gets called out on doing a shit job because that would cast decision making of the executives that called upon them I to question.
>>> Aside from that, there are people who go into consulting and gain a lot of skills, and others who do the least work possible and leave. Some who find great fulfillment in the right corners of the work, some who find it totally dispiriting.
So I don't think it's entirely obvious which type of consulting was being discussed at the point I replied. Even so, I'm not sure the type matter as much as might be thought, I'm positive there are management consultants that bring useful knowledge and real benefits to the table. I think the incentive alignments make that harder, because of some of the same reasons I noted previously, but I don't think the type of consulting really matters, other than one type or the other being more common at different levels.