Friday 17th Feb, 2012
2011 turned out to be another difficult year for public sector consultants in the UK, with little improvement even on the horizon, our research shows. A “nuclear winter” was how one firm characterised it. Some money is still being spent on consultants, particularly on new technology, security and international aid, but there’s also been a change in what organisations are looking for: the emphasis now is on deep expertise, not using consultants to plug gaps in line management.
Saturday 11th Feb, 2012
Consulting in the manufacturing sector has traditionally either been big business or virtually no business depending on the country you work in. A hugely important part of the German economy, the sector accounts for more than a quarter of all consulting there, it’s only about a tenth of the UK market where it’s dwarfed by financial services. It’s a substantial market in India but negligible in the Middle East.
Monday 16th Jan, 2012
The thing about a double, whether an espresso or a recession, is that it implies that the second experience is the same as the first – and that’s a mistake.
Thursday 8th Dec, 2011
Today sees the launch of our short report, Planning for Growth in an Uncertain Market, which looks at the main five options consulting firms have to grow their businesses and at which segments of the industry are likely to gain or lose ground in 2012.
Thursday 17th Nov, 2011
The vast majority of consulting takes place in big companies. Despite the wealth and variety of resources at their disposal, their complexity has out-paced their ability to respond quickly to new challenges and their scale makes it hard for them to see the world objectively. They also have deep pockets. Small companies, especially start-ups, rarely need external help because they’re still in the process of testing their strategy (so any gap between strategy and implementation is less obvious) and have very limited cash.
Friday 7th Oct, 2011
I wrote recently about how Spanish consulting firms have responded to collapsing domestic demand by working with local companies expanding into the South American market and with South American markets looking to build a presence in Spain. The Dutch consulting industry hasn’t had anything like such a difficult time, but it’s been tough nevertheless. The response, however, of Dutch firms has been quite different.
Wednesday 14th Sep, 2011
The Spanish consulting market is a long way from the current engines of growth in Europe, the German and Swedish markets. Its immediate past may be troubled, but it can still teach us important lessons about future success.
Friday 29th Jul, 2011
Our latest survey of buying trends among clients has a curious anomaly in it.
When we ask people which consulting services they’re planning to purchase, we get a broadly, though not massively, positive response. Technology is high on the agenda as organisations move beyond the cost-cutting and regulatory change that dominated the consulting industry during the recession and its immediate aftermath. Outsourcing consulting, too, appears to be making something of a comeback after two very lacklustre years.
Tuesday 12th Jul, 2011
Everyone in consulting knows that the Big Four accounting firms (Deloitte, Ernst and Young, KPMG and PwC) have all grown significantly in the last few years. Indeed, many of us have suspected that they may have out-performed the market, sometimes by a factor of two or three. But none of us could put a figure on what that means for market share.
Monday 27th Jun, 2011
As part of our research on consulting in Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa, we inevitably asked consulting firms how much they’d seen prices fall during the recession.
Overall, we estimate that fee rates among multinational corporations have dropped by between 10% and 15%, and those among large regional or national companies by as much as 50%. The most precipitous declines have now levelled off and in some highly specialised and sought-after areas there are even indications that prices are edging up.
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