The haves and have nots in a €26bn consulting market

Our 2012 Management Consulting Market report, which we previewed at an event in London on Wednesday 27th May, finds a ‘big consulting’ market in the EMEI region worth €26.4bn. That number represents growth of about 4% on last year.

But, more than ever, this is a tale of the haves and the have nots. In the first camp we find the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain and the UAE), which grew by a little more than 20%.  Before we all get over-excited and book ourselves on to the next flight to Dubai, we should take a moment to remember that this is a market worth about €1.2bn. Its potential is enormous but the challenges it faces (in the long run at least) are not much smaller, and for now the harsh reality is that it’s only about the same size as the Spanish or Italian consulting markets. Still, given that we’ve heard the word ‘booming’ used by consultants to describe markets which look postively lacklustre, we should probably describe it as a monstrously, galactically, exploding market.

Russia’s doing something similar – albeit maybe slightly less so – but it’s a market that far fewer people are talking about and is, like the GCC, relatively small. Of greater comfort to consultants will probably be Germany. It may be growing at a relatively modest 7% but it starts from a far greater base (it’s the second biggest market in Europe, behind the UK) and 7% anywhere inside the euro zone at the moment is pretty good going to say the least.

Below that we find India, which we can’t really describe as being in the ‘have’ camp at the moment. Growth there of 4.5% will feel painful to consulting firms who are used to something much more exiciting. Still, the general trend is upward.

There are a bunch of countries somewhere in the middle – bumbling along without really doing much (markets like the UK, France and most of Scandinavia) and then there are the have nots…

These include Spain (which contracted by 3%) and Italy (which contracted by a far more alarming 10%) but what might come as a greater surprise to those who are starting to regard Europe as a place in which the alps aren’t the only thing dividing north and south, is the performance of the Benelux market. That appears to have fallen by only slightly less than Italy. In fact the stories we heard from consultants there – and in the Netherlands in particular – were about as gloomy as anything we heard anywhere.

All of which makes for an interesting experience when, like us, you spending a few months calling consultants all over Europe, the Middle East and India to see how things are going. Dial +49 for happy consultants; dial +31 for unhappy ones.

For more information about the report, please click here or contact Alice Noyelle on +44 (0)20 3178 6443